RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Nicole Gopaul, the UNC’s Lengua/In­di­an Walk lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­date, is con­fi­dent that by Jan­u­ary the court will rule in her favour, de­clar­ing her the win­ner of the con­test­ed seat. 

Ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers at the UNC’s pave­ment meet­ing in Lengua on Thurs­day night, Gopaul de­clared: “’I am in the ca­pa­ble hands of a cou­ple of the most promi­nent lawyers in this coun­try, there­fore, by this time Jan­u­ary, I will be stand­ing here as your coun­cil­lor.”

She out­lined her plans for the dis­trict, em­pha­siz­ing her com­mit­ment to ad­dress­ing is­sues such as roads, land­slips, drainage, and in­fra­struc­ture, as well as chal­lenges in ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, hous­ing, and em­ploy­ment. 

“I await the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work for you, to ad­dress all the con­cerns of the res­i­dents of Lengua/In­di­an Walk,” she said.

“I know that roads are an is­sue, I am aware that land­slips are an is­sue, al­so drainage and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture have its short­fall with­in this dis­trict.”

Gopaul al­so pledged to cre­ate green spaces, ad­vo­cat­ing for poli­cies that up­lift the com­mu­ni­ty and pro­mote op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“In do­ing so, Lengua/In­di­an Walk’s mod­el can be used as an ex­am­ple for oth­er dis­tricts,” she said.

 She al­so em­pha­sized the use of re­new­able en­er­gy sources for a health­i­er en­vi­ron­ment. 

Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles al­so de­clared that Gopaul will soon be of­fi­cial­ly sworn in as the coun­cil­lor.

The Lengua/In­di­an Walk elec­toral seat was ini­tial­ly de­clared in favour of the PNM in the Au­gust 14 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions but end­ed in a tie af­ter a re­count re­quest­ed by the UNC. 

Gopaul and PNM can­di­date Rev Aut­ly Granthume se­cured 1,428 votes each. How­ev­er, there was one bal­lot in the UNC’s favour which was re­ject­ed be­cause it had not been ini­talled by the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer and did not have a polling sta­tion num­ber.

The UNC took the mat­ter to court with Anand Ram­lo­gan SC lead­ing the case.