Yvonne Ba­boolal

For the first time in its his­to­ry, the PNM is in dan­ger of los­ing its strong­hold of Laven­tille. And the threat is com­ing from for­mer Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er's new In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP).The claim is com­ing from none oth­er than ILP in­ter­im leader him­self, Jack Warn­er.Warn­er told the T&T Guardian that, up to yes­ter­day morn­ing, he had a mem­ber­ship list of 106,000 peo­ple and the vast ma­jor­i­ty were from Laven­tille and San Juan/Barataria.

Warn­er was re­spond­ing to ques­tions from the Guardian on feed­back from the ground in Laven­tille that con­stituents have gone green."Yes they have," he said con­fi­dent­ly."The whole coun­try has gone green. The ILP has a mem­ber­ship of 106,000 peo­ple. We have em­ployed 32 per­sons to dis­ag­gre­gate the mem­ber­ship and the vast ma­jor­i­ty are from Laven­tille and San Juan/Barataria.

"Based on ev­i­dence, the sup­port the ILP has from Laven­tille is as­tound­ing. I was told so by Lennox Smith (com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist) and did not re­al­ly be­lieve but when I saw the list..."Warn­er promised to re­veal a break­down of the ILP's mem­ber­ship list soon.Asked if the par­ty will be cam­paign­ing in Laven­tille, he replied: "We will be start­ing from to­mor­row in Tu­na­puna."

The ILP will launch its lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion cam­paign at Au­zonville Park, Tu­na­puna, this evening.Warn­er's po­si­tion was hot­ly dis­put­ed by Laven­tille West MP Nyle­ung Hy­po­lite, who said he is not wor­ried, that the PNM is poised, not on­ly to re­tain Laven­tille, but win the up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment and 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions.

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Don­na Cox said she has been hear­ing some talk but as­sured Laven­tille East/Mor­vant is safe. She laugh­ing­ly dis­missed ru­mours among con­stituents that she, too, has gone green.Warn­er, in re­sponse, said: "Tell them Kam­la said the same thing about Ch­agua­nas West. If they haven't learnt any­thing from Ch­agua­nas West, they have noth­ing to learn."

Some res­i­dents of Laven­tille West, in par­tic­u­lar, who spoke to the T&T Guardian en­dorsed Warn­er's claim."The PNM in dan­ger in Laven­tille. For the first time in his­to­ry, the PNM will lose this seat. Laven­tille and the East-West Cor­ri­dor gone green," one com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist and spokesman, who said he walks the length and breadth of Laven­tille, told the Guardian yes­ter­day. "Every­body say­ing they gone green."

Rep­re­sen­ta­tion is the is­sue

He said they are vot­ing for the ILP for the same rea­sons the peo­ple of the for­mer UNC strong­hold of Ch­agua­nas West boot­ed out the Gov­ern­ment in the Ju­ly 29 by-elec­tion in a stun­ning de­feat and joined the green brigade. The key is­sue is rep­re­sen­ta­tion."We want prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion. For years, Laven­tille vot­ed for the PNM and is still un­der­de­vel­oped. Peo­ple are see­ing Jack as an ac­tion man," he said.

"At one meet­ing in St Barbs, a ma­tri­arch, known as a diehard PNM, said she was fed up and was go­ing by Jack to get mem­ber­ship forms to give out in Laven­tille."And, con­trary to what some may think, Jack has "al­ready put down some work in Laven­tille West," the ac­tivist said, re­quest­ing anonymi­ty be­cause of his job.He said when Warn­er was na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, he in­tro­duced sev­er­al pro­grammes in Laven­tille West through a com­mu­ni­ty car­a­van and gang lead­ers thrashed out their dif­fer­ences.

"When­ev­er he came in­to the area and saw some­thing the peo­ple want­ed fixed, in two-twos work start­ed on it. Peo­ple in Snake Val­ley and St Barbs can tell you about this," he said."Plus, peo­ple in Laven­tille ac­cus­tomed go­ing down Ch­agua­nas by Jack for help. He know the sup­port he have here, too."The ac­tivist said res­i­dents, like those in Ch­agua­nas West, do not care about cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions hang­ing over Warn­er's head.

"In Laven­tille, fel­las does be killing peo­ple and res­i­dents pro­tect them be­cause they feed them. Trans­late this to the pol­i­tics. Peo­ple ac­cus­tomed with al­le­ga­tions in Laven­tille. They look up to peo­ple who help them as he­roes, like Robin Hood."

Nyle­ung Hy­po­lite

Laven­tille West MP Nyle­ung Hy­po­lite said he at­tends a con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing every month and has not heard any­one threat­en­ing to go green."I have a con­stituen­cy group meet­ing month­ly and have heard none of this. I have a reg­u­lar church ser­vice with res­i­dents of Beetham and have not heard any such thing," he said."Peo­ple are talk­ing to give out false in­for­ma­tion, mis­guide and mis­lead. Laven­tille West, I can proud­ly say, will stay PNM."

Hy­po­lite said the same goes for Laven­tille East, Mor­vant, Port-of-Spain and oth­er PNM seats on the East-West Cor­ri­dor and through­out T&T."I am cer­tain that in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion the PNM will re­tain its 12 seats and even get more to form the gov­ern­ment."On the con­trary, he said he has been hear­ing peo­ple say­ing they want to join the PNM, in­clud­ing sen­a­tors.He said the PNM elec­tion ma­chin­ery has been pushed in­to high gear and coun­cil­lors and MPs are walk­ing in their con­stituen­cies dai­ly.

"The PNM has com­plet­ed the screen­ing of 131 can­di­dates who have been giv­en a man­date to go on the field for one month."Can­di­dates for Chi­napoo/St Barbs, Suc­cess/Trou Macaque and Pic­ton/Beetham are walk­ing al­most every sin­gle day. I my­self have been walk­ing."Hy­po­lite pre­dict­ed the PNM will win the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, due by Oc­to­ber 25, and the gen­er­al elec­tion.

"The PNM will get a min­i­mum of nine cor­po­ra­tions in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions and 30 seats in the gen­er­al elec­tion."Asked if he has not heard peo­ple in Laven­tille talk­ing about join­ing the ILP, he said, "Through­out T&T, that's all you are hear­ing."Hy­po­lite dis­missed this as tem­po­rary eu­pho­ria which will die down."Peo­ple gone Warn­er crazy and talk­ing about rep­re­sen­ta­tion. I have been do­ing the same thing–paving roads and fix­ing drains in Laven­tille West.

"The ILP is like a storm. It will de­stroy a coun­try and a vil­lage and then die away. The ILP has not pre­sent­ed one piece of pol­i­cy or a con­sti­tu­tion but peo­ple are run­ning up and down the coun­try in blind sup­port," he said."Un­til they do that, I do not see the ILP as a chal­lenge. As of now, the ILP is not a ma­jor chal­lenge."Laven­tille West has 26,000 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers and I don't ex­pect all of them to vote for the PNM.

"I ex­pect a small per­cent­age to vote for the UNC, the COP and the ILP but I am not wor­ried."

Don­na Cox

"Peo­ple will talk," Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Don­na Cox said, as she laughed off ru­mours she plans to join the ILP.She said she has been hear­ing peo­ple talk­ing about go­ing green and con­firmed that Warn­er did do some work in Laven­tille West when he was na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.Cox agreed with Hy­po­lite, though, that while the ILP may get some sup­port in Laven­tille, the PNM will re­tain the seat.

She said she has not heard any­one in her con­stituen­cy talk­ing about join­ing Warn­er's par­ty."Maybe in Laven­tille West but not in Laven­tille East/Mor­vant."She ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cerns about how peo­ple in­ter­pret rep­re­sen­ta­tion."If peo­ple see Warn­er as some­body they can get some­thing from, they will go that way. But a lot of MPs work hard to rep­re­sent their con­stituen­cies but don't al­ways get through," she said.

"I don't have mon­ey to dip my hand in my pock­et as Warn­er. He has that ad­van­tage. I have to write let­ters, speak about it in Par­lia­ment. That is rep­re­sen­ta­tion, too."Even if I am in Gov­ern­ment, I still have to ask for it. Warn­er is lucky to have had per­son­al re­sources and a port­fo­lio (Works Min­is­ter) to do things in Ch­agua­nas West."But that was one con­stituen­cy. In the whole of Trinidad, it can't hap­pen that way.

"Peo­ple need to be ed­u­cat­ed on what is rep­re­sen­ta­tion. I feel sat­is­fied I rep­re­sent my con­stituen­cy. Up to yes­ter­day I walked."

ILP in­ter­im chair­man

ILP in­ter­im chair­man Robin Mon­tano en­dorsed Warn­er's claim."We are be­ing in­un­dat­ed with ap­pli­ca­tions to join the par­ty but the fig­ures are not in as yet and I can't say, de­fin­i­tive­ly, that Laven­tille and the East-West Cor­ri­dor have gone green."But, if one-tenth of what we are hear­ing is true, then MPs in those ar­eas should have some sleep­less nights."Told Hy­po­lite and Cox are con­fi­dent the PNM will re­tain their strong­holds, Mon­tano said, "What else do you ex­pect them to say?"