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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Walker on contesting election with NTA: I’ve seen a lot of change in Gary

by

KAY-MARIE FLETCHER
Yesterday
20250312
National Transformation Alliance  general election candidate for Diego Martin West, Marsha Walker, during an interview with Guardian Media on Monday.

National Transformation Alliance general election candidate for Diego Martin West, Marsha Walker, during an interview with Guardian Media on Monday.

ANISTO ALVES

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.”


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