Gail Alexan­der

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:

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

"I start­ed to walk in the Va­len­cia area and re­alised we lucky be­cause Va­len­cia in trou­ble (for PNM) ... there are no "booms" in Va­len­cia! No 'ge­nie (to fix things)! I'm ask­ing my­self where's the Ari­ma MP. When I go on Face­book - she in Blan­chisseuse cook­ing wild meat or an­oth­er lime or here or there ... I'm go­ing to work, work, work to re­move the PNM and en­sure they nev­er re­turn! We go be work­ing from day one straight through to the next gen­er­al elec­tions in 2030 and when we win in 2030, we'll con­tin­ue work­ing with you. But be­fore 2030, we have an­oth­er thing to deal with - the lo­cal elec­tion. So, if PNM feel they cut­tail booked in 2025, on April 28 they have an­oth­er thing com­ing, as af­ter, their cut­tail book again as we need to get the lo­cal elec­tion ..."

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

"Moru­ga/Table­land you all have the UNC scared and scat­tered! Up to last week they walk­ing around with their chest up in the air like pea­cock, as they see­ing the Trea­sury in they eye­sight. They feel Trin­bag­o­ni­ans dotish. When they re­alise this elec­tion won't be won on so­cial me­dia but on the ground, house to house, door to door, street to street, av­enue to av­enue, vil­lage to vil­lage, town to town!! While they wast­ing time talk­ing a bunch a lies 'bout Yel­low Code' and 'When UNC win every­body win', we beat­ing the pave­ment talk­ing to our peo­ple, ex­plain­ing the dan­gers of a UNC gov­ern­ment ....Their for­eign ad­vis­ers tell them peo­ple like to win, so if you ma­m­aguy dem and tell dem 'every­body win' they'll fall for that and af­ter you get in of­fice you do what­ev­er you want. And UNC buy dat as they des­per­ate for pow­er!"

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

"... The man in his kitchen, the woman in her bed­room, the teenag­er in the toi­let - they on so­cial me­dia and they say 'Row­ley got to go, Stu­art Young got to go - yel­low is the code.'

"PNM vex be­cause we're be­ing car­ried by the or­di­nary man and woman ... the ground will car­ry you, we be­lieve in you and that's why we can open­ly and bold­ly say 'when UNC win, you win'. You hold us to that! That promise, that covenant! ... (and) don't waste your vote with small par­ties fronting for the PNM! None of these par­ties can form any gov­ern­ment! They can't form a sou sou hand! They can't form a cred­it union so don't waste no time with them...they ent serv­ing your pur­pose ..."

PNM Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Has­sel Bac­chus on last Sat­ur­day's To­ba­go plat­form:

"We had 36 more site lo­ca­tions. Sham­fa jump up: "Half for To­ba­go!' Be­fore she could fin­ish, hear Ayana: 'I wish we could get more'. Next thing you know, 17 of the 36 sites - To­ba­go. You'd not have seen or known that, but the strength of ad­vo­ca­cy, voice, re­silience, fight and stick-to-itiv­ness is what al­lows you to re­ceive a lot of the things you get as these peo­ple stand and fight for you! ... So, when we tell you to vote for Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis and Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy is not just be­cause dey nice. And dey nice. Is not just be­cause we feel is woman and dey go win. Be­cause is woman AND dey go win. It's be­cause they work hard in your in­ter­est in the places you don't see!"

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at last Sat­ur­day's La Hor­quet­ta meet­ing:

"The PNM's worst fear in this elec­tion is the peo­ple will have an equal share of re­sources...we're ask­ing for your vote yes but we want to earn your vote, work for it. As we ap­proach elec­tion day, we con­tin­ue to be stead­fast in our com­mit­ment to earn­ing your vote. We've been shar­ing our peo­ple-cen­tred plans and poli­cies for quite some time now; we've been very strate­gic. Our plat­form has been one of truth and em­pow­er­ment. We're not about the fete and wine and ma­m­aguy pol­i­tics Philip (Watts) spoke of. It's not about the fete and de wine ... of course we'll have nice mu­sic. Our cam­paign has some beau­ti­ful songs and we love the mu­sic ... but that's not what it is about. We're the par­ty in this elec­tion with a cam­paign that is pos­i­tive ..."

PNM Moru­ga can­di­date Lisa At­wa­ter at last Sat­ur­day's Moru­ga meet­ing:

"... I'm al­so strong­ly, strong­ly, strong­ly ad­vo­cat­ing for con­struc­tion of a mod­ern, well-equipped fire sta­tion to save lives. Mr Prime Min­is­ter, you pay­ing at­ten­tion? Ok then. Al­so, Table­land Health Cen­tre no longer ex­ists and Moru­ga's health cen­tre is clos­ing so I'll ad­vo­cate, Mr Prime Min­is­ter and Mr Fos­ter (Cum­mings), that we get a 24-hour health fa­cil­i­ty ... The PNM in Moru­ga/Table­land has run a clean cam­paign, we can't say the same thing for the peo­ple on the oth­er side - they want to make us fa­mous for the wrong rea­sons! So go 'head: burn our ban­ners, throw it away, do what you want! But you can't take my name off the bal­lot pa­per! You can't take At­wa­ter off the bal­lot pa­per!"