Kali­fa Clyne

Con­gress Of the Peo­ple po­lit­i­cal leader Win­ston Dook­er­an par­tic­i­pat­ed in J'Ou­vert yes­ter­day morn­ing as a mas­quer­ad­er in the par­ty's band, Is Meh Pard­ner Ship. The band at­tract­ed a great deal of at­ten­tion as it passed the main judg­ing point at South Quay, Port-of-Spain, led by Dook­er­an who played King of the band, Cap­tain of the Thinkin' Ship. Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing was on hand to crown this year's J'ou­vert king and queen. Lennox Joseph was crowned King with his por­tray­al, T&T's Strongest Man, while the queen ti­tle went to He­len Fullard for Why Cam­la Stop Drink­ing?

Fullard, who has won the ti­tle three times, had ear­ly morn­ing spec­ta­tors laugh­ing as she re­vealed the an­swer on a plac­ard-Be­cause Jack Warn-her. Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons were filled with mu­sic and rev­el­ry from as ear­ly as half past three yes­ter­day morn­ing. Bands parad­ing through St James left a trail of mud, oil, paint, co­coa and choco­late. Oth­er bands head­ed in­to down­town Port-of-Spain area from Wood­brook, St Clair, Mar­aval and along Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

Sev­er­al bands, in­clud­ing Yel­low Dev­ils and Tribe's Red Ants, at­tempt­ed to pass along the nar­row Long Cir­cu­lar Road but had to come to a com­plete stop sev­er­al times as traf­fic was at a stand­still near the Church of the As­sump­tion in Mar­aval, and var­i­ous oth­er points along the route. Band of­fi­cials were forced to ask their pay­ing mas­quer­aders as well as the non-pay­ing mas­quer­aders (storm­ers) to clear the roads for ve­hi­cles to make their way through. This did not ease the con­ges­tion, how­ev­er, as the two large J'Ou­vert bands made their way along Long Cir­cu­lar Road from op­po­site di­rec­tions. Of­fi­cers at the St James Po­lice Sta­tion said yes­ter­day's J'Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in the dis­trict were in­ci­dent free. How­ev­er, at around 9.20 am a group of rev­ellers, re­turn­ing home from the ear­ly morn­ing cel­e­bra­tions were seen throw­ing glass bot­tles at each oth­er on Bournes Road.