KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er

@guardian.co.tt

With the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy gear­ing up to vote in a new Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s ex­it from elec­toral pol­i­tics, some res­i­dents say they are ready for change.

For­mer Op­po­si­tion tem­po­rary sen­a­tor Mar­sha Walk­er says she is up for that chal­lenge hav­ing re­cent­ly re­signed from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to join Gary Grif­fith’s Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA).

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Walk­er said she could no longer align her­self with a Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led UNC but is com­mit­ted to help­ing the peo­ple of her home­town of Diego Mar­tin.

“I gen­uine­ly love Diego Mar­tin. My hus­band from here. My par­ents from here. His par­ents from here. I’m from here. I love Diego Mar­tin. I shop right there, so I’m not in it for a safe seat. We have no rea­son for hav­ing gang and shootouts and un­em­ploy­ment. There’s no rea­son for that in Diego Mar­tin. I do not need a PNM vot­er to switch. I don’t. I need the non-vot­er to care enough and come out on elec­tion morn­ing and vote.”

And to the naysay­ers who may ques­tion her de­ci­sion to align with NTA’s po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith, with whom she’s had sev­er­al pub­lic fall­outs in the past, Walk­er said she’s seen a lot of change in him and the NTA has been sup­port­ing her for the last cou­ple of years.

She added, “For any­one to say now that I’m join­ing his par­ty, but in 2023 it was NTA. I had more blue shirts walk­ing be­hind me in Good­wood, Glen­coe, La Puer­ta than I did with yel­low shirts.”

Mean­while, sev­er­al res­i­dents said they were loy­al to the PNM no mat­ter what.

Samuel Scott, 89, said he’s been plac­ing his “x” by the Bal­isi­er since 1961.

Asked why he keeps vot­ing for PNM in Diego Mar­tin West, he said he be­lieves it’s the on­ly par­ty that ben­e­fits the peo­ple.

Scott said, “I’m not sup­port­ing no oth­er par­ty but the PNM. All that I have ever achieved is from the PNM, un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment. I’m not sup­port­ing any oth­er one.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent Desmond Ryan said he knows no oth­er par­ty will win the Diego Mar­tin West seat, but he’s will­ing to sup­port Walk­er.

Ryan said, “For­get the chance of win­ning be­cause this is a pre­dom­i­nant­ly PNM con­stituen­cy, but I’ll vote for her. I am not in favour of the PNM go­ing the 15 years. They didn’t do noth­ing in 10 for the poor, how they could do for five more? Let us get rid of them for at least five years and let some­body else come. Trinidad and To­ba­go is not PNM own. It’s not Row­ley own and it’s not Stu­art Young own. We don’t need a gov­ern­ment like the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment. We want a more cit­i­zen-friend­ly gov­ern­ment. We want a gov­ern­ment that can di­ver­si­fy and build in­fra­struc­ture and cre­ate jobs. This is what we need in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Walk­er will be go­ing up against the PNM’s Hans de Vi­gnes and Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty’s leader (PEP) Phillip Alexan­der said his par­ty will al­so be con­test­ing the seat.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, de Vi­gnes wel­comed the com­pe­ti­tion.

“Com­pe­ti­tion is a sign of a healthy democ­ra­cy—it chal­lenges us to be bet­ter and to serve a greater pur­pose. My fo­cus re­mains on what’s best for the peo­ple of Diego Mar­tin West and en­sur­ing their voic­es are heard and their needs are met.”