Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Through­out the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, all eyes have been on Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh as the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) led ad­min­is­tra­tion was tasked to pro­tect the coun­try from the virus which has al­ready killed over 500,000 peo­ple world­wide and in­fect­ed mil­lions more. How­ev­er, Deyals­ingh is not claim­ing any ad­van­tage from this pub­lic­i­ty for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion as he seeks to hold on to his St Joseph seat he held since 2013.

“It (the pan­dem­ic ex­pe­ri­ence) made me a stronger per­son,” Deyals­ingh told Guardian Me­dia in an in­ter­view af­ter fil­ing his nom­i­na­tion at the St Joseph Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre yes­ter­day.

“The peo­ple of St Joseph don’t vote for a min­is­ter; they vote for an MP (mem­ber of par­lia­ment). If an MP can­not solve their is­sue then I am no good and I am run­ning on a plat­form of ac­com­plish­ment as their mem­ber of par­lia­ment.”

His suc­cess­es as the con­stituen­cy’s par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive, he said, in­cludes road paving works, pro­vi­sion of wa­ter sup­plies to cer­tain ar­eas, and build­ing com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres.

“I am run­ning on a plat­form of ac­com­plish­ment and peo­ple want to see that con­tin­ue,” he it­er­at­ed.

His clos­est com­pe­ti­tion for the seat, Ahloy Hunt, how­ev­er, sees it dif­fer­ent­ly. Al­so speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter fil­ing his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers, the ex-sol­dier said he be­lieves Deyals­ingh has ne­glect­ed the con­stituen­cy.

“He’s (Deyals­ingh) is miss­ing. There’s no pres­sure what­so­ev­er. The peo­ple have spo­ken. You can hear their suf­fer­ings, you can hear their cries. They are go­ing to change this dic­ta­to­r­i­al, ab­sent, non-per­form­ing MP,” he said.

Hunt cit­ed a lack of jobs, lack of ac­cess to wa­ter, flood­ing and crime as is­sues plagu­ing the con­stituents of St Joseph.