Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Af­ter the start of Spe­cial Vot­ing ex­er­cis­es on Mon­day, the elec­tion "drums" are beat­ing long and loud as par­ties com­plete fin­ish­ing touch­es to elec­tion day ma­chin­ery - the ul­ti­mate key to vic­to­ry in next Mon­day's Gen­er­al Elec­tion. And in­tense ver­bal en­cour­age­ment from the plat­forms is all part of the "or­ders" be­ing giv­en to­wards this. Here's what you may have missed:

PNM La Hor­quet­ta can­di­date Fos­ter Cum­mings at last Sat­ur­day's Moru­ga meet­ing:

"Af­ter you've vot­ed, you must con­vince every fam­i­ly mem­ber, neigh­bour, cousin, aunt, un­cle - spread the gospel of pro­tec­tion of the pub­lic purse and good gov­er­nance the PNM can do ... I'm beg­ging you - help us pro­tect T&T from the UNC! ... I look for­ward to great news when we're at Bal­isi­er House on April 28. I must hear the drums rolling in Moru­ga/Table­land! Be­cause you're very good with drums down here! I know you have some Bap­tist peo­ple down here! You know I'm a Bap­tist too! I'm call­ing on all the Bap­tists in Moru­ga/Table­land! Beat your drum! Sing your song! Wave your co­coyea broom! Do what­ev­er you have to do and sweep dem out of Moru­ga/Table­land!"

UNC Cou­va North can­di­date­Jear­lean John at last Sat­ur­day's La Hor­quet­ta meet­ing:

"Do not re­lent or take your eyes off the tar­get! Free­dom Day is April 28 ... thou­sands of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans will rise to de­fend that for which they fought - free­dom against tyran­ny! We will not raise a bar­ri­cade, or lift our voic­es, we will not be march­ing to the tem­po of drums, no big truck, we'll march to the polls with the echo of our hearts cry­ing for jus­tice and free­dom ... Peo­ple: it will not be easy as free­dom ent free. So get up ear­ly, make your plan be­fore, pick up every­one. Don't wait for any­body to pick you up; be­cause you have to pay a price for your free­dom! Take April 28 as a hol­i­day, as you have to go and get out the vote! "

PNM To­ba­go West can­di­date Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis at last Sat­ur­day's To­ba­go meet­ing:

"As much as they in­vest in these in­flu­encers and blog­gers to try get you to stay away from the polls, we will not stay home! We will vote...every­body who's 18 years and over, call a neigh­bour, tell a friend, bring out your fam­i­ly... I've said it be­fore and I would say it again, there are some peo­ple who are of­fend­ed by it but I tell you: when 'Keisha' stays home in To­ba­go West, 'Sav­it­ri' in Siparia goes to the polls and votes. It's your busi­ness to mind your busi­ness and vote - on­ly you can vote for you!"

UNC Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca can­di­date Do­minic Smith at last Sat­ur­day's La Hor­quet­ta meet­ing:

"The 'Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment'? They should take away the 'Peo­ple,' it should be 'NM' or 'Na­tion­al Move­ment'. They should take away the 'Na­tion­al' as well, as that 'N' don't mean any­thing to them. In fact, they should move the 'Move­ment' some­where else - get it out of Trinidad! We doh want the PNM here at all! ,.. Once every five years the pow­er re­turns to every youth in T&T. It's your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to vote. You not vot­ing for 'Do­minic Smith' or any can­di­date on our slate, you're vot­ing for your­self. For you! In every con­stituen­cy, take the name off. Take "Do­minic' off and place your name there, as a vote for me is a vote for you!"

PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley at last Sat­ur­day's To­ba­go meet­ing:

"I want to ask To­bag­o­ni­ans again: the elec­tion has one more week of cam­paign­ing to go, the UNC's man­i­festo has been out, they've been in your face every day in the news­pa­per and tele­vi­sion on what they're of­fer­ing on every is­sue. They're in your eyes! They're in your ears. I want to ask To­bag­o­ni­ans: this' com­pre­hen­sive list' of things that is out there by the UNC - what are they say­ing about in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment for To­ba­go? Ab­solute­ly noth­ing! As they know that has nowhere to go as long as they have any­thing to say about it! They're gonna take VAT off whiskey, off snow crab legs, caviar - but noth­ing on in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment."

UNC La Hor­quet­ta can­di­date Phillip Watts at last Sat­ur­day's La Hor­quet­ta meet­ing:

"For the past cou­ple days, Phillips Watts have a par­tic­u­lar can­di­date brain all over the stage in La Hor­quet­ta but they say emp­ty bar­rel is make re­al noise! This is not a fete and wine PNM style pol­i­tics...dat ent wuk­ing here tonight! La Lo­mas, you MP treats your loy­al­ty as his own. He be­lieves that when he wears that red shirt, you're loy­al to him or you should be loy­al to him. Stand up La Lo­mas and re­ject dem at the polls as we say 'not this time' at all!"

PNM To­ba­go leader An­cil Den­nis at last Sat­ur­day's To­ba­go meet­ing:

"I'm hear­ing a lot­ta talk about back­pay and who of­fer­ing 10 per cent and 15 per cent. Be ex­treme­ly care­ful be­cause I don't want you to make the mis­take and think on­ly about back­pay. You al­so have to think about pay­back be­cause the mon­ey to pay the back­pay must come from somwhere and my maths tells me that a 10 to 15 per cent in­crease will cost TT over $6 bil­lion for back­pay alone..."

UNC Ari­ma can­di­date Nigel Moses at last Sat­ur­day's La Hor­quet­ta meet­ing:

"They (UNC) pulled me aside and told me try not to be as an­gry. If you fol­low me on Tik Tok they start to call me the 'an­gry man'. I'm no longer an­gry, as I'm start­ing to get ac­cus­tomed to what I'm ex­pe­ri­enc­ing from the PNM in Ari­ma. I've been com­plain­ing about the woes in Ari­ma for too long and BOOM! The PNM cre­at­ed a ge­nie for elec­tion. I dri­ving around look­ing for PNM holes - and BOOM! The ge­nie start to fix dem!"