The PNM has a lit­tle edge over oth­er par­ties in up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls - but things could change, says for­mer PNM front­lin­er Har­ry Rag­o­nanan who's back­ing Louis Lee Singh's new po­lit­i­cal PPM group.

But Ra­goo­nanan be­lieves noth­ing may change un­til all par­ties op­posed to the PNM come to­geth­er - un­der the lead­er­ship of for­mer PP Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath.

Ra­goo­nanan spoke to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing Wednes­day's launch of Lee Sing's group, the Port of Spain Peo­ples' Move­ment (PPM).

The group is con­test­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls in Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion ar­eas alone. PPM has nine can­di­dates so far and peo­ple are still be­ing screened for the re­main­ing three seats. Can­di­dates in­clude three for­mer PNM POS coun­cil­lors - Ash­tine Thoma­son, Cleve­land Gar­cia and Da­da Aswad Gabriel.

The par­ty has no po­lit­i­cal leader but is be­ing run by a Lee Sing (chair­man), Omawale Braith­waite (trea­sur­er) and Cleve­land Gar­cia (deputy chair­man). Lee Sing said he's of­fer­ing a place for those who don't wish to vote red or yel­low - PNM or UNC - since they could come to the cen­tre." He said if David slew the gi­ant Go­liath, PPM could al­so slay its own "Go­liath" in POS - the PNM.

Ra­goo­nanan was ex­pelled from PNM last year and is con­test­ing this legal­ly. He told Guardian Me­dia he was hap­py with the re­sponse PPM has re­ceived fand while PPM may not win but it would send a strong mes­sage to the PNM. He said Bharath is do­ing a "lot of work on the ground" and UNC would "do well to ex­am­ine its po­si­tion care­ful­ly". If it lost seats in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls, the UNC lead­er­ship should step down, he added.

Lee Sing, ad­dress­ing Wednes­day's launch said POS had be­come a place peo­ple want­ed to leave, " There isn't a road with­out a pot­hole. Too many see POS as a busi­ness dis­trict. They don't see Sea Lots, Katan­ga, Bel­mont, Block Eight, Rose Hill. They don't un­der­stand the meta­mor­pho­sis of Wood­brook,"

"When I speak of a bro­ken, de­cay­ing city, it's be­cause for 60 years POS was ruled by a par­ty that presided over la­trine pits in East POS and that par­ty didn't do any­thing, I be­gan emov­ing these pits when I was may­or. But to­day we still have 5,000 la­trine pits. PPM will work to re­move this ob­scen­i­ty,"

Lee Sing said PPM would change POS from a place of fear to the "Feel Good" cap­i­tal. He en­vis­aged a pedes­tri­anised POS, side­walk cafes, cof­fee shops, prop­er street vend­ing, safe use of the city's 26 parks. He ap­pealed for cit­i­zens to do­nate toi­let seats for POS schools which lack such ameni­ties, he said.