KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

With all eyes on sev­er­al mar­gin­al seats in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Barataria/San Juan—a seat the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) won by 1,060 votes in the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion—to get the views of con­stituents this time around.

When you vis­it this con­stituen­cy, there are busi­ness­es every­where but de­spite this, one is­sue res­i­dents say their con­stituen­cy faces is un­em­ploy­ment.

Speak­ing in San Juan, 44-year-old Em­ma Say­ers-Baird, who has lived in the com­mu­ni­ty her en­tire life, said, “Un­em­ploy­ment is a re­al is­sue.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, 63-year-old David­son Ryan, an­oth­er San Juan res­i­dent, said, “There is a need for jobs for the youths.”

Lennox Lovelace, 68, who has lived in the con­stituen­cy for 31 years, added, “I wish the au­thor­i­ties try their ut­most best to cre­ate em­ploy­ment be­cause lack­ing em­ploy­ment in any coun­try, in any sit­u­a­tion, is pover­ty, and once there is pover­ty, there is crime and crime will es­ca­late.”

Res­i­dents al­so told Guardian Me­dia that home­less­ness and crime are two oth­er ma­jor is­sues the con­stituen­cy of Barataria/San Juan faces.

Cheryl Richards, 56, said, “The home­less­ness is an is­sue. On the prom­e­nade, there are a lot of peo­ple who are out there, they are home­less or for what­ev­er rea­son they are out there.”

De­spite these is­sues, when it comes to rep­re­sen­ta­tion, some res­i­dents say they want in­cum­bent UNC Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Sad­dam Ho­sein to win again.

Forty-year-old El So­cor­ro res­i­dent Naresh Rag­bir said, “Very good MP. He should stay.”

Patrick Ra­jku­mar, 72, said, “I think UNC will win and I think UNC gen­er­al­ly will win the whole elec­tion.”

And, 68-year-old Barataria res­i­dent An­tho­ny Al­cazar al­so felt the Op­po­si­tion par­ty would re­tain the seat.

“That’s a sure seat for UNC. Per­fect, I’m con­fi­dent of that. He will win that seat,” Al­cazar said.

UNC/PNM can­di­dates con­fi­dent

Thir­ty-four-year-old Ho­sein is al­so quite con­fi­dent of a vic­to­ry as well.

An at­tor­ney-at-law, Ho­sein was elect­ed MP in 2020.

At the time, he was 29 years, mak­ing him the then-youngest MP in the Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia about his plans for the con­stituen­cy, Ho­sein said crime, un­em­ploy­ment, flood­ing and poor in­fra­struc­ture would be some of his key fo­cal points.

He said, “This time I am much more con­fi­dent than the last time. Over the last five years, hav­ing es­tab­lished a lot of re­la­tion­ships with the con­stituents, var­i­ous in­ter­est groups, or­gan­i­sa­tions with­in the con­stituen­cy, as the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, we have done a lot of work …

“I have a plan in the next five years. We are go­ing to get in­to gov­ern­ment. I am very con­fi­dent about the UNC’s chances to get in­to gov­ern­ment. Now that I have iden­ti­fied all of the prob­lems, once we have the dis­pos­al of the state re­sources, I think we can bring im­me­di­ate re­lief to the peo­ple of Barataria/San Juan.”

Ho­sein al­so has the back­ing of the San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (SJ­BA).

SJ­BA pres­i­dent Abrahim Ali told Guardian Me­dia, “We have a tremen­dous amount of sup­port from Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Sad­dam Ho­sein and I will tell you his sup­port has gone through­out San Juan, where peo­ple are wel­com­ing him as their new MP as well be­cause they are able to work with him. They are able to give their is­sues, where he is able to re­solve wher­ev­er he can. So yes, he has been good to us and we do look for­ward to his sup­port in this fu­ture.”

He added, “This is the MP we want in say­ing that we have worked well with MP Sad­dam Ho­sein in the past and we hope that if he re­mains, we con­tin­ue that re­la­tion­ship with him. How­ev­er, if an­oth­er per­son comes up on board in gov­ern­ment, then we have to work with that MP.”

But, there are res­i­dents who say the MP has ne­glect­ed the needs of the area, while oth­ers said they will be vot­ing for an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

Six­ty-two-year-old Barataria res­i­dent Earl Gra­ham said, “Who is the MP of Barataria? I don’t even know, that’s to tell you. I ain’t see­ing him.”

David­son Ryan said, “I am back­ing the PNM (Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment) this time around.”

This year, the PNM’s can­di­date for Barataria/San Juan is Dr Muhammed Yu­nis Ibrahim, 50, who has been a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor since 2011. He is al­so a den­tist by pro­fes­sion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at his den­tal

den­tal clin­ic lo­cat­ed in the con­stituen­cy he’s con­test­ing, Ibrahim said, un­like Ho­sein, he has many ties to Barataria/San Juan hav­ing worked in the con­stituen­cy for more than half his life.

Ibrahim said, “I re­al­ly fell in love with Barataria/San Juan, its peo­ple, its cul­ture. I fell in love with the tol­er­ance and the re­la­tion­ships of the peo­ple. No mat­ter the side of the di­vide, the peo­ple of Barataria/San Juan are ex­cep­tion­al at the co-ex­is­tence. So, I al­so opened my pri­vate den­tal prac­tice, San Juan Den­tal Clin­ic, and I have been a clin­i­cian cel­e­brat­ing 20 years of den­tal ser­vice on the East­ern Main Road in Barataria/San Juan.

“So love brought me here to Barataria/San Juan. I have sunk my roots in this com­mu­ni­ty and I have reat­tached my um­bil­i­cal cord to this com­mu­ni­ty … I’m not an out­sider who came from some­where ask­ing for a vote. I have been a nat­u­ralised sun of the soil of Barataria/San Juan. My com­mu­ni­ty knows me and I know the com­mu­ni­ty, that is where the edge is.”

And while Ho­sein has the San Juan Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion’s sup­port, Ibrahim boasts of his re­la­tion­ship with Barataria/San Juan’s Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty.

Ibrahim added, “It’s been tout­ed to be a very pre­dom­i­nate­ly based de­ci­sion-mak­ing Mus­lim vote. I have been in­volved with them for­ev­er, since I know my­self.”

But the UNC and PNM aren’t the on­ly po­lit­i­cal par­ties in this year’s race.

Stef­fon Boodooram, 29, is the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front’s (PF) can­di­date, 23-year-old Joshua Fal­tine is the All Peo­ple’s Par­ty (APP) can­di­date and Da Vi­vian Bain is rep­re­sent­ing the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion­al Al­liance (NTA).

Asked how he plans to win the seat, Boodooram said, “I be­lieve I can win the votes be­cause I am one of the peo­ple. I’ve walked these streets, shared meals with fam­i­lies here, and stood shoul­der to shoul­der with my com­mu­ni­ty in both good and hard times.

“Most peo­ple know me per­son­al­ly—they know my heart, my char­ac­ter, and my will­ing­ness to help when­ev­er I’m called up­on. I’m al­ways avail­able to those who reach out, and they know that. But I’ve al­so felt the lim­its of what one man can do. That’s why I’m step­ping for­ward—be­cause when our par­ty wins, my peo­ple will win too. They will fi­nal­ly get the sup­port they’ve long been de­nied. No more emp­ty promis­es. No more be­ing for­got­ten.”

Mean­while, 39-year-old Bain, whose back­ground is in Com­put­er Sci­ence and re­al es­tate, said he de­cid­ed to step in­to pol­i­tics be­cause for sev­er­al years he’s been help­ing res­i­dents with­out be­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly in­clined.

He said res­i­dents, like him­self, have not seen Ho­sein for sev­er­al years and they con­tin­ue to cry out for help, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to crime and drainage is­sues.

Bain said, “The res­i­dents are com­plain­ing about a lot of things like crime and drainage. They com­plain to me a lot. I do a lot of work on the ground with­out be­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned. I’ve used mon­ey from my own pock­et to help peo­ple, and I think now that I’ve been al­lowed me join a po­lit­i­cal par­ty to help the peo­ple on a wider scale, now is the best time be­cause peo­ple are fed up of the UNC and peo­ple are fed up of the PNM, so I have to give the peo­ple a bet­ter choice to ac­tu­al­ly get some change in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

An­a­lysts: Mus­lim vot­ers crit­i­cal

Com­ment­ing on how the vot­ing may sway in the con­stituen­cy, which has changed hands be­tween the PNM and UNC for sev­er­al decades, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj said he be­lieves the can­di­date who can get the Mus­lim vote will have the edge.

Ram­samooj said, “What is crit­i­cal in that con­stituen­cy would be the dy­nam­ics of the vot­ers who are of the Mus­lim faith. His­tor­i­cal­ly, you had Ka­mal (Ka­malud­din) Mo­hammed that rep­re­sent­ed a strong Mus­lim per­spec­tive, and I think that is what we’re go­ing to see in this elec­tion. The val­ues and the moral­i­ty of both can­di­dates and how they fit in­to the ethos of that con­stituen­cy.”

But, Dr Fuad Khan, who served as Barataria/San Juan MP un­der a UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion four times over sev­er­al years, be­lieves that come April 28, his­to­ry will re­peat it­self be­cause of where can­di­dates choose to cam­paign.

Dr Khan said, “Ja­son Williams (PNM can­di­date in 2020) did not go to the UNC ar­eas to any great ex­tent. I don’t know why his cam­paign man­ag­er did him that, be­cause Ja­son Williams was a good can­di­date but he did not go in­to the UNC ar­eas. He kept in­to the PNM and the Barataria ar­eas. How­ev­er, I have not seen Dr Yu­nis go in­to the UNC ar­eas at all, but I know Sad­dam goes in­to the UNC and PNM ar­eas as well, so Sad­dam does have the ad­van­tage.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James says the chances of these so-called third par­ties claim­ing the seat is slim.

Dr James said, “They prob­a­bly see a cer­tain vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty which they think they can ex­ploit but as I said to you be­fore, it’s not ar­bi­trary ... You don’t just wake up a morn­ing and de­cide, well I’m vot­ing for one of the new par­ties, NTA and Kezel Jack­son. That’s just wish­ful think­ing.”

He al­so be­lieves the in­cum­bent MP may have the edge at win­ning votes this time around, based on his re­la­tion­ship with the con­stituents. How­ev­er, James says this con­stituen­cy is one to look for be­cause there may be a lot of swing vot­ers.

But, whether it’s the res­i­den­tial PNM vot­ers of Barataria or the bustling busi­ness­es in San Juan in sup­port of UNC, the con­stituen­cy of Barataria/San Juan is def­i­nite­ly one to keep an eye on come April 28.