Yet an­oth­er at­tempt is in the off­ing to counter the crim­i­nal cul­ture by util­is­ing in­di­vid­u­als with mil­i­tary and polic­ing knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence. It’s a state­ment of hope by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her place­ment of re­tired se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der to con­test the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy in the April 28th Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Alexan­der gained na­tion­al promi­nence through his no-non­sense ap­proach to deal­ing with crim­i­nals, which was for­ti­fied in his role as co-host of the TTPS-dri­ven tele­vi­sion pro­gramme Be­yond the Tape, which fo­cus­es on crime. In that show, Alexan­der and his team of­ten dealt with crim­i­nals in a man­ner they may have de­served, and he was the epit­o­me of “tough talk.”

If elect­ed, and if his par­ty wins the elec­tion, he may fol­low oth­er army and po­lice of­fi­cers in­to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lio. Brigadier Gen­er­als Joseph Theodore, Ed­mund Dil­lon, Carl Al­fon­so, John Sandy, and Gary Grif­fith, a for­mer se­nior De­fence Force of­fi­cer, have been giv­en the task pre­vi­ous­ly. On­ly Dil­lon con­test­ed an elec­tion for the job, hav­ing won a seat in the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) push for vic­to­ry in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The oth­ers were hand­picked and placed in the Sen­ate, from where they were leapfrogged in­to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­istry. In this in­stance, it is clear the UNC sees Alexan­der’s pop­u­lar­i­ty as a crime fight­er as a boost to his chances of wrench­ing the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy away from the PNM.

The seat has been cast as a crit­i­cal mar­gin­al up­on which the elec­tion can turn. The elec­toral record, though, shows that nine can­di­dates of the rul­ing PNM have won the seat go­ing back to 1956, a few of them on more than one oc­ca­sion. The in­cum­bent, Es­mond Forde, has won the seat in the last two gen­er­al elec­tions and with fair­ly com­fort­able mar­gins, even though re­duced in 2020 from the 2015 poll. On­ly three can­di­dates of oth­er par­ties have been suc­cess­ful in Tu­na­puna on sin­gle oc­ca­sions.

In the re­al­i­sa­tion that her par­ty has to do some­thing spec­tac­u­lar to wrest this East-West Cor­ri­dor con­stituen­cy with a mixed pop­u­la­tion of vot­ers away from the PNM, the UNC leader has opt­ed for a na­tion­al fig­ure.

The is­sue, though, be­yond the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the UNC can­di­date win­ning the seat to help his par­ty gain of­fice, is whether per­sons with law en­force­ment back­grounds have made a dif­fer­ence as min­is­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Brigadier Theodore, dur­ing his term of of­fice, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the dis­man­tling of the no­to­ri­ous Dole Chadee gang, with the leader and eight mem­bers be­ing hanged at the State prison. That was achieved through the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­istry work­ing close­ly with the then at­tor­ney gen­er­al, Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, and his min­istry.

So too, Brigadier Theodore, as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, de­fend­ed a red line in the sand, which he had drawn with ful­ly armed sol­diers, dar­ing the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen group to cross to take pos­ses­sion of in­creased acreage of Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion lands at Mu­cu­rapo. One crit­i­cal fea­ture of that suc­cess was the com­bi­na­tion ef­fort of the two min­istries.

The record shows, though, that none of the oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters with law en­force­ment back­grounds had any sig­nif­i­cant suc­cess in con­quer­ing, even abat­ing, the ex­is­tence and ef­fects of this crim­i­nal scourge in T&T.

But as in­di­cat­ed, even be­fore such a pos­si­ble part­ner­ship can be struck, Mr Alexan­der has to pre­vail at the polls in a very tough race against an en­trenched PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tive.