DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

There was a Car­ni­val-like at­mos­phere in Bel­mont yes­ter­day, as both Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West can­di­date Stu­art Young and Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der made their way to Bel­mont Sec­ondary School to file their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.

Alexan­der was ac­com­pa­nied by se­nior Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­ber Wade Mark. He em­braced var­i­ous el­e­ments of T&T's vi­brant cul­ture as he walked along Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road, flanked by a few dozen sup­port­ers car­ry­ing a ban­ner em­bla­zoned with the words “Phillip will fix it.” The pro­ces­sion fea­tured moko jumbies, clas­si­cal In­di­an dancers, a red dev­il fire breather, and a fire breather on stilts.

Adding to the live­ly scene, drum­mers ac­com­pa­nied a mu­sic truck blast­ing Alexan­der’s own song. Af­ter fil­ing his pa­pers, Alexan­der lin­gered in the hope of en­coun­ter­ing PNM sup­port­ers and Young. How­ev­er, he even­tu­al­ly left, ac­cus­ing Young of be­ing too afraid to face him.

The Prime Min­is­ter, how­ev­er, ap­peared un­daunt­ed.

"Any­body who lis­tens to Mr Alexan­der, just be care­ful of the path­way that you're be­ing led down. I am afraid of no one," Young said with a chuck­le.

Young, mean­while, was joined by around 100 sup­port­ers of vary­ing ages, march­ing through the streets to a mu­sic truck as they chant­ed "Stu­ar­ty," a hook from his lat­est po­lit­i­cal song. Sup­port­ers waved flags and posters bear­ing Young's im­age and car­ried the bal­isi­er plant, which is the par­ty's sym­bol.

The PM al­so took time to greet pupils at Rain­bow Munchkins Preschool and Bel­mont Sec­ondary School, where the old­er stu­dents re­ceived flags and waved in time with the crowd.

Speak­ing to the me­dia, Young de­scribed the nom­i­na­tion process as smooth, say­ing he com­plet­ed it in just a few min­utes.

De­spite skip­ping the mock nom­i­na­tion ex­er­cise last Tues­day, Alexan­der said his fil­ing al­so went "smooth­ly."

He dis­missed con­cerns about the UNC's readi­ness for the polls, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter the Op­po­si­tion Leader on­ly re­vealed her 39 full can­di­dates on Thurs­day night.

"The Op­po­si­tion has nev­er been at a dis­ad­van­tage. Every time the mim­ic man, every time the po­lit­i­cal squat­ter of the PNM talks, he makes it eas­i­er for us to win," he said.

He added that he had re­ceived nu­mer­ous pledges of sup­port from con­stituents and re­mained op­ti­mistic about his chances at the polls. Alexan­der will con­test the seat Young has held for the last two terms un­der a UNC tick­et.