Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Polti­cal Re­porter

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties are in a height­ened phase of Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign­ing now, as­sess­ing lat­est num­bers, com­fort and cri­sis lev­els, tight­en­ing "ar­tillery," mu­sic trucks are do­ing the bat­tling in places and con­struc­tion is start­ing in the PNM and UNC stages at the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah and Aranguez Sa­van­nah grounds re­spec­tive­ly. It's the las lap. Here's some of what you may have missed on the plat­form:

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at Tues­day's UNC St Joseph meet­ing:

"Five days - bring out every sin­gle vote...it is the end now. The end is in sight ... This is the op­por­tu­ni­ty you've been wait­ing for, where your voice will be heard, where you will be cared for, where there is fair­ness, progress and pros­per­i­ty for all to en­joy, to­geth­er. April 28th is the day you vote for a leader and par­ty who loves you ... the day to re­claim your rights as equal cit­i­zens, the day you re­claim your streets for your chil­dren to play ... Be­cause Trinidad and To­ba­go be­longs to every­body and all cit­i­zens are wor­thy of all the ben­e­fits our par­adise has to of­fer."

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young at Tues­day's PNM St Joseph meet­ing:

"You have less than a week to go and let me tell yuh some­thing, it is a good time to be a Trin­bag­on­ian and to be sup­port­ing the PNM! ...Think very, very care­ful­ly about next week Mon­day and what we're be­ing called up­on to do when we cast our vote ... what you have to de­cide T&T, is all about lead­er­ship ... you have to de­cide when that call comes from a world leader, be it at 1 am, mid­night, 5 am or mid­day, who is ca­pa­ble of tak­ing that call, mak­ing the sober de­ci­sions, the best de­ci­sions ad­vo­cat­ing on T&T's be­half and pro­tect­ing it ... when you get through all the ole talk, all what the UNC's try­ing to do on so­cial me­dia, with dis­hon­est TV ads and all the dis­hon­est Rah-Rah, we in T&T have to de­cide who has a track record..."

UNC Aranguez/St Joseph can­di­date De­vesh Ma­haraj at Tues­day's St Joseph meet­ing:

"Ban­ners are be­ing torn down on both sides, okay. Our par­ty en­thu­si­asts and PNM par­ty en­thu­si­asts, they're get­ting a lit­tle riled up. So we've told ... cool it down, cool it down, take it down. As our po­lit­i­cal leader says: her name is Kam­la - be calm, be calm ... Through­out the East West cor­ri­dor we're see­ing a change with Sturge in To­co to Na­tal­ie to Roger to my con­stituen­cy with Sad­dam - the whole coun­try com­ing out with yel­low, yel­low, yel­low!"

PNM Aranguez/St Joseph can­di­date Ter­rence Deyals­ingh:

"I'm speak­ing to the un­de­cid­eds and the el­der­ly ... Promis­es are in UNC's DNA ... Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar fooled our el­der­ly in­to vot­ing for her, promis­ing $3,500 pen­sions and you vot­ed for it and PNM went from 26 seats to 12. But when she re­alised she couldn't fund it she said it was an 'er­ror'. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on - me ... his­to­ry is cru­el to those who don't learn its lessons. Now, in 2025, Kam­la's com­ing to you just like in 1986 and 2010 with a bas­ket of good­ies..."

UNC host Anil Roberts at Tues­day's St Joseph meet­ing:

"When you get­ting cut­tail the true you does come out. So (PNM St Joseph co­or­di­na­tor) Noel Gar­cia, as one po­lit­i­cal sa­vant to an­oth­er, I say thank you Noel Gar­cia for let­ting us know that the UNC and the coali­tion is on the road to vic­to­ry. On April 28, a re­sound­ing vic­to­ry across T&T, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar shall be the next prime min­is­ter of T&T - thank you Noel Gar­cia!"

PNM Tu­na­puna can­di­date Es­mond Forde at Tues­day's St Joseph meet­ing:

"PNM peo­ple, do not be fooled by the glit­ter or all the me­dia blips com­ing on your screen every minute ... There's on­ly one Es­mond Forde, I can­not be cloned or du­pli­cat­ed but I'm see­ing some­one in Tu­na­puna barg­ing in­to peo­ple's hous­es, bring­ing them out in their dusters and night­ie, call­ing out their ages and in­for­ma­tion. Mad­ness! All those in those video clips, I can iden­ti­fy them and their back­grounds ... I cel­e­brat­ed them on their birth­days and an­niver­saries, so what the can­di­date is try­ing to do is clone me, be like me, try­ing to get those in Tu­na­puna to like him - it is too late!"

UNC Tu­na­puna can­di­date Roger Alexan­der at Tues­day's UNC meet­ing:

"Let us no longer ac­cept what they're giv­ing to us. Let us not be pi­geons for them, where they feed us and we feel full for one day and for five years they gone un­til they come back ... time to change dat! They're try­ing to frus­trate us. We know on Sun­day com­ing all who's go­ing to come out with the food cards and the one-day con­tracts. One day. If dey come wid the food card, all yuh take it! UNC peo­ple take the food cards too! And still vote dem out!"

PNM Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul at Tues­day's PNM St Joseph meet­ing:

"My name is Vish­nu Dhan­paul, my PNM fam­i­ly can call me Vish but if you're a mem­ber of the UNC - please don't call me. Giv­en that my first state­ment on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form an­noyed the Op­po­si­tion so much, there's on­ly one thing for me to do - do it again! When it's nice (do it twice). When I speak, I speak facts based on em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence. Ask my wife - I doh lie. I want them in that oth­er par­ty to tell you who worked on all the UNC's bud­gets when they were in Gov­ern­ment (me) - five with Bri­an Kuei Tung! One with Ger­ald Yet­ming. Two with Win­ston Dook­er­an and three with Lar­ry Howai. Please call to fact-check me with these gen­tle­men. So I can say to UNC trolls - let's agree to dis­agree at an in­tel­lec­tu­al lev­el."