Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

They're all con­tin­u­ing at it with ever-in­creas­ing po­lit­i­cal tem­po - every ap­pear­ance seek­ing spot­light, every state­ment lob­by­ing sup­port. Politi­cians are head­ing through the clos­ing cur­rents of the Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign in­to the start of spe­cial vot­ing, which be­gins on Mon­day. Here's some of what oc­curred on the plat­form in case you missed it:

UNC's Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al at Wednes­day's San Fer­nan­do meet­ing:

"I've nev­er seen a re­sponse to a UNC can­di­date the way I've seen the re­sponse to John Michael Al­i­bo­cus. About a month ago, he sent me videos of that pool that he spoke about and he said 'do you think I should get a clos­er video?' I said 'John Michael, some­thing will come out­ta dat pool and bite you - don't go any clos­er. But to­day, I see Bri­an Man­ning has post­ed 'don't wor­ry we'll be re­open­ing soon' with pic­tures of the clean pool. It's on­ly when John Michael go some­where, Bri­an Man­ning will then show up and get some­thing done in San Fer­nan­do East!"

Out­go­ing PNM Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds at Wednes­day's Laven­tille meet­ing al­leged:

"The UNC has and I must ad­mit, a won­der­ful piece of mu­sic. But 'Ho­tel Cal­i­for­nia' is nice mu­sic too but it deal­ing with drugs. The UNC have a nice song and the theme is 'When UNC wins..' ... They ent even win yet and Paray lose! Ani­ta lose! Rod­ney lose! Rai lose! The Ma­ha Sab­ha lose! Dig­ni­ty and in­tegri­ty lose and dey ent win yet!"

UNC Aranguez St Joseph can­di­date De­vesh Ma­haraj at Thurs­day's Tu­na­puna meet­ing:

"Gangs are re­plac­ing the fam­i­ly unit not on­ly in Aranguez/St Joseph but through­out T&T...you heard any ini­tia­tive by the Gov­ern­ment on this? You want to know why we have such a high crim­i­nal el­e­ment in T&T, why the crime rate is so high, why 624 mur­ders, you don't have to be a rock­et sci­en­tist to de­ci­pher that - look at the sta­tis­tics. But even more alarm­ing is the ques­tion of re­cidi­vism ...I see two promi­nent crim­i­nal lawyers in front of me (in the au­di­ence) ... Is­rael Khan screw­ing up his face like he doesn't like what I'm say­ing...se­nior coun­sel?"

NTA St Joseph can­di­date Gary Grif­fith at Wednes­day's San­gre Grande meet­ing:

"You need to make the right choice. We have a na­tion to de­fend, it's about en­sur­ing we can pro­tect T&T from crime, cor­rup­tion, evil el­e­ments, per­sons who want to try to get in­to gov­ern­ment to do 10 times worse than the Life Sport and Colour Me Or­ange and Hoop of Life that we've seen. We do not want that you have to make that choice."

UNC'S Tu­na­puna can­di­date Roger Alexan­der at Thurs­day's UNC Tu­na­puna meet­ing:

"You didn't ser­vice us for 10 years, you came day be­fore yes­ter­day. Don't take their chain up, do not al­low them to ma­nip­u­late your brain, don't let then feed you with small corn and peas for one day and be­lieve you'll eat for the rest of your life!"

PNM Laven­tille East/Mor­vant can­di­date Christo­pher Birch­wood at Wednes­day's Laven­tille meet­ing:

"I heard the Op­po­si­tion Leader talk­ing about 'blood in the streets' - blood in the streets, imag­ine that! Try­ing to paint Laven­tille with one brush, that nar­ra­tive is bi­ased, un­fair and dis­re­spect­ful. Yes, we do have is­sues, as one life lost is one too many but don't brand our en­tire com­mu­ni­ty - you can­not do that. The lights are here, life is here and there's a lega­cy here!"

UNC Arou­ca/Lopinot can­di­date Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj at Thurs­day's Tu­na­puna meet­ing:

"About the health­care work­ers, do­mes­tic and above be­ing un­der­paid, short paid, not be­ing able to get their gra­tu­ities, get­ting slapped in the face with a four per cent - I am (PSA pres­i­dent) Fe­l­isha Thomas' vot­er, I got the four per cent too - and we will start at 10 per cent for the next ne­go­ti­a­tions!"

PNM Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral can­di­date Symon de No­bri­ga at Wednes­day’s Diego Mar­tin meet­ing:

"You have UNC can­di­dates who don’t have to walk their con­stituen­cies but we know we have to come to you. Par­ty struc­ture de­mands no mat­ter how high your of­fice, you must re­turn to the ground. We have to come to you and an­swer hard ques­tions and I’ve had a few to an­swer ..."

San Fer­nan­do co-chair ken em­rith at Wednes­day's UNC South meet­ing:

"Af­ter that speech by Ma­ka (UNC San Fer­nan­do East can­di­date John "Makamil­lion" Al­i­bo­cus, Bri­an Man­ning must be quak­ing in his boots!"