Derek Achong AND Joshua Seemu­n­gal

One of the two for­mer UNC coun­cil­lors who were yes­ter­day pre­sent­ed as Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­dates for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions says he is no trai­tor.

“No, I don’t (think I’m a trai­tor). I de­cid­ed to move to be in a bet­ter po­si­tion to serve my res­i­dents, even be­yond what I was able to do dur­ing my first term,” Mar­cus Gird­harie said yes­ter­day when asked his re­sponse to his for­mer UNC col­leagues who were la­belling him a trai­tor and Ju­das.

Gird­harie and Shel­don “Fish” Gar­cia de­fect­ed from the UNC in re­cent weeks to join the PNM. Gird­harie will aim to rep­re­sent Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la and Gar­cia Ari­ma Cen­tral again, but this time in the red of the bal­isi­er.

Mo­ments be­fore be­ing pre­sent­ed as one of the PNM’s 141 can­di­dates for the Au­gust 14 polls at a Spe­cial Con­ven­tion at NA­PA, Port-of-Spain, Gird­harie, said, “The PNM is an in­sti­tu­tion that is greater than any one per­son, and that in­sti­tu­tion is one that has struc­ture. It has pro­to­cols and pro­fes­sion­als.

“My pre­dic­tion - if I may say so - would be, at best, 8-1. But I think the mo­men­tum has sim­ply col­lapsed for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress - in that they are now fever­ish­ly look­ing for per­sons to fill po­si­tions.”

He said at the launch of the UNC’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment cam­paign, he recog­nised the par­ty had no struc­ture and strat­e­gy. He said af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered her ad­dress, the in­cum­bents in the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion were giv­en one minute to speak.

How­ev­er, Gird­harie ex­pressed con­fi­dence in win­ning the elec­toral dis­trict again.

“Pri­or to the news be­ing pub­li­cised on the lo­cal news­pa­per, I would have sent a com­mu­ni­ca­tion to my var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty groups be­cause I see my­self be­ing ac­count­able to them - the elec­toral dis­trict, and what they have said to me is that they sup­port me in my move. They have said to me they didn’t see UNC in the area, in the dis­trict, it was me in the area. I was the one who did the work that was nec­es­sary to im­prove the lives and the en­vi­ron­ment in which they live, and they have said they will be giv­ing Mar­cus their sup­port de­spite what side I am on.”

He added, “The work I would have done to so­lid­i­fy my po­si­tion as the coun­cil­lor for the Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la speaks for it­self, so for any par­ty to have not cho­sen me as the can­di­date may have been a mis­step on their part. And as I’ve said, if I hadn’t come to the PNM to be a can­di­date, I was al­ready a can­di­date at the UNC. I came be­cause I un­der­stood the struc­ture and the pro­fes­sion­al­ism un­der which, and the lead­er­ship that PNM is guid­ed up­on.”

Row­ley: We bribed no one to cross

Mean­while, de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley de­nied that the PNM (PNM) had bribed for­mer UNC of­fi­cials to de­fect.

Row­ley not­ed that all 141 can­di­dates screened and se­lect­ed by the par­ty were “vol­un­teers.”

Apart from Gird­harie and Gar­cia, for­mer UNC sen­a­tor Tahar­qa Obi­ka, who re­cent­ly switched al­le­giances, was al­so in the au­di­ence at the event.

While Row­ley did not men­tion ei­ther can­di­date by name, he said: “Of the 141 can­di­dates, every sin­gle one is a vol­un­teer. We have of­fered no one an in­duce­ment. We have paid no one a fee and most im­por­tant­ly, we have made no one a promise.”

Row­ley ad­vised his loy­al sup­port­ers to not be dis­tract­ed by is­sues raised by the Op­po­si­tion in re­la­tion to long-stand­ing na­tion­al is­sues such as crime and the econ­o­my.

“It took us a long time to get to this point, where the main is­sue is whether you sup­port lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form or op­pose it. It is as sim­ple as that,” he said.

Row­ley al­so claimed that his par­ty was not con­cerned by sev­er­al small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties that are con­test­ing the elec­tion.

“We have de­feat­ed about 70 po­lit­i­cal par­ties in this na­tion. All we can say to all the de­trac­tors is to form them and bring them. The PNM will deal with them,” he said.

In her brief ad­dress, the par­ty’s vice chair­man Camille Robin­son-Reg­is called on can­di­dates to re­main hum­ble if they are even­tu­al­ly suc­cess­ful.

“Un­der­stand that pol­i­tics is all about leav­ing your ego at the door. From the time you are de­clared a win­ner every day from hence­forth should be about re­duc­ing your ego,” she said.

“In­stead, your days should be used to serve self­less­ly,” she added.

She called on them to all read the Peo­ple’s Char­ter of 1956, which de­tails the par­ty’s fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples.

“It is not an ide­al­is­tic or out­dat­ed doc­u­ment. Its prin­ci­ples are very alive to­day. It is a liv­ing mon­u­ment,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

Robin­son-Reg­is al­so took aim at the Op­po­si­tion, who she claimed had no vi­sion.

“They are locked in­to times of trou­ble, sea­sons of dis­con­tent, scan­dal, and vi­cious­ness,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

The event al­so fea­tured nu­mer­ous per­for­mances from pop­u­lar lo­cal artists, in­clud­ing Iw­er George, Ben­jai and Isas­ha.