“Who­ev­er wins Tu­na­puna wins the elec­tion”.

This is a state­ment you may have heard be­ing bandied about be­fore.

But how true is it?

Well, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) look­ing back at all na­tion­al elec­tions held since the start of the 21st cen­tu­ry, this is in­deed so.

There were six Gen­er­al Elec­tions and four Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions held in this coun­try since the year 2000, and the po­lit­i­cal par­ty that won the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy even­tu­al­ly went on to win the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, while the par­ty that won the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) came out vic­tors in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion.

And so with a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due be­fore the end of this year, and a Gen­er­al Elec­tion due next year the stakes for Tu­na­puna are now ex­treme­ly high.

As it stands right now the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) rep­re­sents Tu­na­puna in the Par­lia­ment and is al­so in charge of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC).

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), how­ev­er, be­lieves it can wrest con­trol of the area from out of the hands of the PNM.

Guardian Me­dia went in­to the Tu­na­puna area last week to look at the sit­u­a­tion, as the coun­try an­tic­i­pates go­ing to the polls in some form or fash­ion with­in the next year and a half.

Es­mond Forde, who is the cur­rent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Tu­na­puna and Deputy Speak­er, first en­tered the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives fol­low­ing the 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Be­fore his en­try in­to the Par­lia­ment, Forde al­so spent five years as the coun­cil­lor for the Au­zonville/Tu­na­puna elec­toral dis­trict.

He was al­so the Vice-Chair­man of the TPRC.

Forde, who says he was “born and bred” in Tu­na­puna, be­lieves the con­stituen­cy is a “crit­i­cal one”.

“It is con­sid­ered the most mar­gin­al of mar­gin­al seats. In past gen­er­al elec­tions the (Tu­na­puna) seat was won by un­der 500 votes, how­ev­er, in 2015 I won the seat by around 3,700 votes. But all that can evap­o­rate overnight so I am not tak­ing any­thing for grant­ed,” Forde said.

As a re­sult of this Forde said he has al­ways been work­ing in the area as he tries to pro­vide prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion for its con­stituents.

“My door was al­ways open as a lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor, and it con­tin­ues to be opened now as the mem­ber of par­lia­ment,” he said.

PNM and UNC fo­cus­ing on peo­ple-cen­tred ser­vice

Forde said he has logged close to 9,000 vis­its to his of­fice since be­com­ing an MP.

He said while the fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties fac­ing the coun­try has ham­pered some in­fra­struc­tur­al work in the area, he be­lieves that once the sit­u­a­tion is turned around Tu­na­puna will get what it right­ful­ly de­serves.

“I took my oath very se­ri­ous­ly, even though I may not be able to pro­vide the main in­fra­struc­ture, paved road­ways or bridges con­struct­ed be­cause of the tight­ness of the econ­o­my, Es­mond Forde the MP for Tu­na­puna forges re­la­tion­ships with his con­stituents,” he said.

Forde be­lieves he has a good re­la­tion­ship with the ma­jor­i­ty of con­stituents no mat­ter their creed, race, or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions.

“I am do­ing my part, God and the peo­ple will de­cide whether or not Es­mond Forde did enough, but I think I did enough to en­sure that Tu­na­puna got its share of the pie,” he said.

“I just want the con­stituents to con­tin­ue to have faith and once the coun­try gets back on a good fi­nan­cial foot­ing, Tu­na­puna is go­ing to get every­thing it needs,” Forde said.

De­spite the fi­nan­cial con­straints, how­ev­er, Forde said some se­ri­ous in­fra­struc­tur­al work was un­der­tak­en in the com­mu­ni­ty in­clud­ing the con­struc­tion of bridges and the fix­ing of a sink­hole.

The UNC, how­ev­er, does not be­lieve that enough is be­ing done for the con­stituen­cy.

Last Sat­ur­day the par­ty opened its “Peo­ple-cen­tred ser­vice cen­tre” to ad­dress those per­ceived de­fi­cien­cies, UNC chair­man Pe­ter Kan­hai told Guardian Me­dia.

Kan­hai, who is al­so the co­or­di­na­tor for the UNC’s Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy, had pre­vi­ous­ly served as the pres­i­dent of the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce for five years.

Kan­hai said the UNC in­tends to win the Tu­na­puna seat.

“There are sev­er­al mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies now and Tu­na­puna is a crit­i­cal mar­gin­al seat for ei­ther par­ty. There is a say­ing that who­ev­er wins Tu­na­puna wins the elec­tion so from that stand­point both sides recog­nise the sig­nif­i­cance of Tu­na­puna. Now that is not to say that a par­ty who los­es Tu­na­puna can­not win the elec­tion or vice ver­sa, a par­ty who wins Tu­na­puna can­not lose the elec­tion, but we the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, we are fo­cused on win­ning the elec­tion and we have placed Tu­na­puna among those con­stituen­cies that we must win,” Kan­hai said.

Kan­hai said the UNC has picked up “a lot of dis­en­chant­ment” from Tu­na­puna con­stituents.

“What we’ve picked up is a lot of dis­en­chant­ment from the peo­ple in this com­mu­ni­ty as in oth­er ar­eas. There’s a lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Tu­na­puna is a con­stituen­cy rep­re­sent­ed en­tire­ly and at both lev­els, the lo­cal gov­ern­ment and at the Par­lia­men­tary lev­el by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the PNM, yet a lot of the peo­ple we have met are dis­en­chant­ed for one rea­son or the oth­er,” he said.

As a re­sult of this Kan­hai said the UNC in­tends to pro­vide var­i­ous ser­vices, in­clud­ing free le­gal aid, as well as cre­ate an em­ploy­ment data­base.

Forde, how­ev­er, be­lieves that the UNC com­ing in­to the con­stituen­cy now is sim­ply a ma­m­aguy.

The voice of the vot­ers

So what do the vot­ers in Tu­na­puna think?

Well, for Ar­don Bre­ton both the UNC and the PNM are sim­ply the same thing.

“I don’t like pol­i­tics but I don’t like to see peo­ple suf­fer­ing and boy right now the cry of the peo­ple is that they are suf­fer­ing,” Bre­ton said.

Bre­ton said no mat­ter who wins the elec­tion whether be PNM, or UNC, or any oth­er par­ty he just wants them to be “more em­pa­thet­ic”.

Bre­ton said all politi­cians should take a page from for­mer prime min­is­ter George Cham­bers when it came to deal­ing with peo­ple.

“None of them to­day could match Cham­bers. He used to lis­ten, he would let you talk and lis­ten to what you have to say,” he said.

Camille John, how­ev­er, be­lieves that Forde em­bod­ies those very at­trib­ut­es.

“I see him walk­ing the area. I see him in the mar­ket, he’s al­ways at a func­tion for peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty whether it’s a birth­day par­ty or fu­ner­al. So to me, he is try­ing,” John said.

Mean­while, Bre­ton’s friend Mark Fran­cois took is­sue with his analy­sis of the sit­u­a­tion.

“How can you say peo­ple suf­fer­ing, and the bar al­ways full? They still have mon­ey to go to the bar, so I don’t like the state­ment that peo­ple are suf­fer­ing,” Fran­cois said.

Fran­cois high­light­ed the re­cent Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions to sup­port his point.

He said who­ev­er wins the elec­tion in Tu­na­puna needs to con­sult more with the con­stituents.

“They need to con­sult be­fore they make any ma­jor de­ci­sions that’s what they need to do. We know that there are hard de­ci­sions to be made but talk to us first,” he said.

Dale Bac­chus said he feels the traf­fic con­ges­tion and drainage are two of the ma­jor prob­lems af­fect­ing the con­stituen­cy.

“We just need to sort those two things out and I feel we will be good,” Bac­chus said.

For N. Mulkhraj the most press­ing is­sue is the crime.

“Crime is what killing this place. We need them to ad­dress that and have the po­lice do­ing more night pa­trols,” Mulkhraj said.

Chris­t­ian Per­sad said he be­lieves the cry all across the coun­try is for bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“I don’t think any­body is ever re­al­ly sat­is­fied with rep­re­sen­ta­tion on a whole in the con­stituen­cies, na­tion­wide, not just here,” Per­sad said.

Vot­ing pat­terns

2016: PNM won the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion on No­vem­ber 28.

PNM cap­tured the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PNM 12, UNC 4)

2015: PNM won the Gen­er­al Elec­tion on Sep­tem­ber 7.

Es­mond Forde won the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy for the PNM with 11,228 votes.

2013: PNM won the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion on Oc­to­ber 21.

PNM cap­tured the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PNM 12, COP 2 , ILP 1)

2010: Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship won the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion on Ju­ly 26.

PP won the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PP 11, PNM 4)

2010: Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship won the Gen­er­al Elec­tion on May 24.

Win­ston Dook­er­an won the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy for the PP with 10,446 votes.

2007: PNM won the Gen­er­al Elec­tion on No­vem­ber 5.

Es­ther Le Gen­dre won the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy for the PNM with 8,494 votes.

2003: PNM won the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion on Ju­ly 14.

PNM cap­tured the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PNM 9, UNC 4)

2002: PNM won the Gen­er­al Elec­tion on Oc­to­ber 7.

Ed­die Hart won the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy for the PNM with 10,154 votes.

2001: PNM and the UNC tied the Gen­er­al Elec­tion on De­cem­ber 10 win­ning 18 seats each. Pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son even­tu­al­ly chose Patrick Man­ning as Prime Min­is­ter.

Ed­die Hart won the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy for the PNM with 8,792 votes.

He beat Mervyn As­sam of the UNC by 254 votes.

2000: UNC won the Gen­er­al Elec­tion on De­cem­ber 11.

Mervyn As­sam won the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy for the UNC with 9,062 votes.

He beat Ed­die Hart by 336 votes.