Gail Alexan­der

The Nur E Is­lam masjid of El So­cor­ro, San Juan, yes­ter­day dis­tanced it­self from a poster and so­cial me­dia state­ment at­trib­uted to the or­gan­i­sa­tion which ques­tioned the lifestyle of UNC Barataria/San Juan can­di­date Sad­dam Ho­sein and the rul­ing PNM has called on the UNC to look with­in its own ranks to as­cer­tain who did the poster.

UNC PRO Ani­ta Haynes, who has al­so de­nied the al­le­ga­tion, ac­cused the PNM of do­ing the poster.

PNM cam­paign man­ag­er Ro­han Sinanan, in turn, ac­cused the UNC of not on­ly be­ing be­hind the Ho­sein poster but al­so be­hind a fake video of PNM’s Barataria/San Juan can­di­date Ja­son Williams.

The war in­volv­ing the al­leged poster and video arose af­ter a so­cial me­dia mes­sage cir­cu­lat­ed yes­ter­day al­leg­ing, “The broth­ers in Nur E Is­lam are con­cerned about the qual­i­ty of the UNC can­di­date and what we have heard about his pe­cu­liar lifestyle. We would need this cleared up soon be­cause it can di­vide the com­mu­ni­ty. The Masjid it­self stays away from pol­i­tics but we have a big mem­ber­ship in El So­cor­ro. Some broth­ers are say­ing the UNC is very in­sul­tive of Is­lam to send such a can­di­date.”

How­ev­er, Nur E Is­lam head Imam Shi­raz Ali told Guardian Me­dia, “The masjid has noth­ing to do with that. It’s ter­ri­ble that any­one would make an as­so­ci­a­tion with­out ev­i­dence. It’s to­tal­ly not Is­lam­ic. The masjid would nev­er as­so­ciate it­self with that. We know Sen­a­tor Ho­sein to be a prac­tis­ing Mus­lim. We have no ev­i­dence of those mes­sages.”

Ali said he was called by some­one about it and he al­so replied that the masjid man­age­ment and Ja­maat weren’t as­so­ci­at­ed in any form or fash­ion “with the dis­taste­ful mes­sages post­ed re­gard­ing ho­n­ourable sen­a­tor Sad­dam Ho­sein.”

Ali said the masjid doesn’t con­done dis­parag­ing re­marks about the gen­er­al elec­tions. He added it was wrong to at­tribute any such poster to the masjid and no-one gave per­mis­sion to make any dis­parag­ing state­ments.

“We re­main neu­tral, we don’t get in­volved in elec­toral pol­i­tics or take sides, we have mem­bers who fol­low all par­ties,’’ Ali added.

The UNC’s Haynes yes­ter­day said, “(The poster) is ridicu­lous. It’s un­for­tu­nate he’d have to ad­dress per­son­al at­tacks like this. But we’re con­fi­dent he’s go­ing to breathe fresh air in­to elec­tions and we hope the fu­ture of pol­i­tics sees such at­tacks go­ing away.’’

UNC deputy leader Jear­lean John de­clined to com­ment.

United National Congress UNC candidate for Barataria/San Juan, Saddam Hosein, left, and the incumbent MP Dr. Fuad Khan during a walkabout on Don Miguel Road in Barataria yesterday.

ANISTO ALVES

False Ru­mours: Ho­sein

Mean­while, dur­ing a walk­a­bout yes­ter­day, Barataria/San Juan can­di­date Sad­dam Ho­sein in­sist­ed that the “ru­mours” cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia about his al­leged lifestyle were un­true and ac­cused the rul­ing PNM of a smear cam­paign.

“The PNM has start­ed their smear cam­paign al­ready. The ru­mours are false. I’m go­ing for­ward, fo­cused. The more they at­tack me, the stronger I’ll get,” he said.

Walk­ing to­geth­er with the con­stituen­cy’s in­cum­bent MP Dr Fuad Khan, he ex­pressed con­fi­dence in suc­ceed­ing his UNC coun­ter­part.

“We are ready to take Barataria/San Juan for­ward again with the UNC, and we are go­ing to win this next elec­tion,” Ho­sein said.

The PNM’s Ro­han Sinanan, mean­while in­sist­ed, “The UNC must look with­in its own ranks for the an­swers re­gard­ing who pub­lished that poster on Sad­dam.

“If they do, they might find the per­son - or one of their as­so­ciates - who al­so cre­at­ed the fake video on our can­di­date Ja­son Williams.”

The video pur­port­ed to be Williams throw­ing a free par­ty, of­fer­ing rum and pork.

Sinanan added, “We’re very con­cerned about this. We don’t as­so­ciate PNM’s name or our can­di­date with that un­for­tu­nate video.’’

PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing added, “Un­der­stand this: The PNM ab­solute­ly dis­tances it­self from any foul play in this elec­tion! We take no re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for any al­leged cir­cu­la­tion of this poster. It’s not our style of pol­i­tics to en­gage in that type of char­ac­ter as­sas­si­na­tion.”

She added, “We’ve seen the UNC use the cloak of Par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions to at­tack and as­sas­si­nate the char­ac­ter of our po­lit­i­cal leader, his par­ent and his fam­i­ly. We’ve seen the UNC’s leader call the PNM’s leader an ‘Oreo’, a ref­er­ence to race - that’s not PNM pol­i­tics.’’

She claimed the fake video on Williams—in­volv­ing pork and rum—was a de­lib­er­ate UNC at­tempt to in­cite re­li­gious in­sta­bil­i­ty in a con­stituen­cy like Barataria/San Juan. There are sev­er­al Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties in the con­stituen­cy.

She added, “I’m sure (this video) has its roots in the UNC’s bow­els. PNM abides by the po­lit­i­cal code of con­duct, whose rules won’t see us tak­ing nasty swipes at peo­ple. But these things are com­mon in their play­book, it’s iden­ti­cal to past UNC at­tempts at char­ac­ter as­sas­si­na­tion - Ho­sein stands no chance against Ja­son Williams.’’

- with re­port­ing by Joshua Seemu­n­gal