Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Per­cy Vil­lafana, the 81-year-old man who start­ed an In­ter­net fren­zy by his brazen re­fusal to al­low Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning in­to his prop­er­ty in March, mount­ed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Uni­ty ral­ly plat­form yes­ter­day, de­clar­ing that the time for change has come. Clad in a black t-shirt with his now fa­mous, crossed arms "Do So" sign print­ed on the front, the pow­er­ful Vil­lafana whipped an al­ready-fren­zied crowd in­to pan­de­mo­ni­um, as he was led on stage to en­dorse the UNC/COP al­liance. Vil­lafana, in an in­ter­view, said he was pleased to be part of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. "I was in­vit­ed, and I felt it was a good thing to do. "I felt that my pres­ence here will give courage and im­pe­tus to peo­ple to go out and vote," Vil­lafana said. The Re­al Street, San Juan, res­i­dent told the crowd he want­ed them to ex­er­cise their civic right and vote on May 24.

"I ask every­one who is here to­day and is el­i­gi­ble to vote on the 24th of this month, to vote, vote, vote! Go to the polling sta­tions and vote UNC/COP," the pen­sion­er de­clared, as he raised his hands high in the sign of his "do so" cross. The thou­sands gath­ered in Mid-Cen­tre Mall car park, Ch­agua­nas, fol­lowed suit, cheer­ing loud­ly. Vil­lafana said he was sur­prised by the re­sponse to his sign and ban­ning of the Prime Min­is­ter. He said the act was one that came from his heart. "I did not ex­pect this re­sponse. I did it with­out ex­pect­ing any­thing. It just hap­pened like that. I did it with an open mind and heart." The pen­sion­er, who has a grow­ing mem­ber­ship on his fan page on pop­u­lar so­cial net­work­ing Web site, Face­book, said he was ex­treme­ly pleased.

How­ev­er, he dis­missed the PNM's lat­est ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paign us­ing the "do so" sym­bol, and con­vert­ing it in­to a hand­shake, as a des­per­ate act. "That is the sign of a des­per­ate man, a man grasp­ing at straws," Vil­lafana de­clared.

Hans­ley Ajod­ha, in­tro­duc­ing Vil­lafana on stage, said: "Mr Vil­lafana's pres­ence here to­day is not a paid per­for­mance. "This is a man who feels strong­ly about what is hap­pen­ing in this coun­try, and all he asks is that we com­mit to uni­ty." Vil­lafana's en­trance was pref­aced by a dance per­for­mance that in­cor­po­rat­ed Vil­lafana's sign in­to its moves. What would have seemed an im­pos­si­ble dream two years ago has be­come a re­al­i­ty, as the two main op­po­si­tion par­ties joined forces, "com­ing to­geth­er with a com­mon mis­sion and com­mon vi­sion," de­clared UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

From as ear­ly as 10.30 am, UNC and COP sup­port­ers, as well as mem­bers of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, start­ed gath­er­ing at the uni­ty ral­ly venue. The crowd spilled over on to the grassy area on the near­by Solomon Ho­choy High­way, to the left, and on­to Ch­agua­nas Main Road and TSTT com­pound, on the left. Sup­port­ers in­clud­ed some fa­mil­iar faces who came out of the po­lit­i­cal wilder­ness, such as for­mer UNC agri­cul­ture min­is­ter Reeza Mo­hammed. For­mer UNC sports min­is­ter Manohar Ram­saran and for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Roy Au­gus­tus, both clad in their white COP T-shirts, min­gled with the crowd.

A small plane cir­cled the ral­ly venue, car­ry­ing a ban­ner de­clar­ing sup­port for Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Writ­ten in red was: "Kam­la 4 a bet­ter fu­ture. Vote UNC-COP."

The ral­ly al­so at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials, as a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copter cir­cled the car park about sev­en times. Of­fi­cers seat­ed in­side hung half-way out of the air­craft. En­ter­tain­ment was not in short sup­ply at the ral­ly, dur­ing which the UNC/COP can­di­dates were re­vealed, as the Orig­i­nal de Fos­to Him­self per­formed his Ah Cyah Vote for Dat. Ed­win "Crazy" Ay­oung al­so per­formed his Patrick Have to Go and chut­ney singer Ra­jin Dhan­raj belt­ed out his Go nah; Patrick Leave and go nah! to an ap­pre­cia­tive crowd.