PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher

@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der be­lieves vi­o­lence is creep­ing in­to the elec­tion cam­paign trail through gang­ster pol­i­tics.

Alexan­der, who was speak­ing at the open­ing of the PEP’s Me­dia Brief­ing Cen­tre and Cam­paign Head­quar­ters, con­demned the ac­tions re­cent­ly seen in a video, which de­pict­ed a man in a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment jer­sey phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ing peo­ple seat­ed in a ve­hi­cle wear­ing colours as­so­ci­at­ed with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

The head­quar­ters is at Quad Row Build­ing, Park Street, Port-of-Spain.

“We are see­ing that man­i­fest it­self on the ground more and more. There is a video that was cir­cu­lat­ing of these po­lit­i­cal sup­port­ers man­han­dling oth­ers in traf­fic, and there were two oth­er in­ci­dents like that that there weren’t video for so it didn’t get a chance to make so­cial me­dia but we’ve been see­ing the ad­vo­cate of gang­ster pol­i­tics,” said Alexan­der.

He said in the con­stituen­cy he’s con­test­ing, Diego Mar­tin North East, he was alarmed by the be­hav­iour of UNC can­di­date Eli Za­k­our and his sup­port­ers, claim­ing that Za­k­our was ver­bal­ly abu­sive to­wards one of his PEP mem­bers when con­front­ed about his ac­tions.

Alexan­der al­so raised con­cerns about van­dal­ism by UNC mem­bers dur­ing the cam­paign as well as the de­struc­tion of PEP cam­paign ma­te­r­i­al.

“On the lamp poles, on the roads and on the bridges, we are see­ing vi­o­lent graf­fi­ti, we are see­ing abuse of the com­mu­ni­ties. Peo­ple’s prop­er­ties are be­ing paint­ed up yel­low, so far not red.”

He added, “There have been acts of po­lit­i­cal van­dal­ism, we’ve lost so far in the con­stituen­cy that I am con­test­ing six very ex­pen­sive ban­ners and we have opt­ed to go with the ban­ners so that we could put them up and take them down af­ter the elec­tion with­out the com­mu­ni­ty be­ing de­faced and un­tidy.”

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Za­k­our said he would be con­sult­ing his at­tor­ney and will is­sue a state­ment on the mat­ter to­day.

Alexan­der al­so an­nounced his in­ten­tion to write Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes again to ask for a post­pone­ment of the polls.

“Our COVID-19 cas­es that cur­rent­ly have the coun­try in fear right as com­mu­ni­ty spread rav­ages through the coun­try is go­ing to cause a prob­lem for our el­der­ly and in­firm on elec­tion day,” he said.

Alexan­der al­so dis­missed the po­ten­tial at­tempt to void Bar­ry Para­dath’s can­di­da­cy for the UNC in Princes Town due to a dis­crep­an­cy in his reg­is­tra­tion, la­belling it as “cheap and dirty pol­i­tics.”

“It is us­ing COVID-19 con­ve­nient­ly and we will have none of that. We will not sup­port that,” said Alexan­der.