Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Dur­ing the cur­rent cut and thrust of po­lit­i­cal de­bates dur­ing the on­go­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion bat­tle, politi­cians have been de­liv­er­ing some gems and jabs on the hus­tings. To­day, we con­tin­ue to de­liv­er some of the state­ments that may have been missed.

PNM Mau­si­ca/Mal­abar can­di­date Do­minic Ro­maine at mon­day's La Hor­quet­ta meet­ing:

" U.N.C - 'Un­der No Cir­cum­stances!' When you see the yel­low code come in your neigh­bour­hood, look­ing for votes, knock­ing on your door, ring­ing your door­bell and call­ing at your gate 'good evening, good evening'. Don't hide in­side. Come out­side! Meet them at the gate and tell dem rock so! It ent have no vote here! Keep walk­ing!"

UNC To­co/San­gre Grande can­di­date wayne sturge at Tues­day's San­gre Grande meet­ing:

"Bow your heads in prayer when you go on elec­tion day, as I know it's very hard for some of you, as yuh moth­er and yuh grand­moth­er and yuh great grand­moth­er ac­cus­tomed vot­ing for the Bal­isi­er. Lemme tell yuh: Er­ic Williams dead and gone! He not com­ing back and he kyar do nuthin' for yuh! And all yuh big and have sense so yuh grand­moth­er can't beat yuh with no broad belt if you vote UNC!"

PNM Laven­tille West can­di­date ka­reem mar­celle at Mon­day's La Hor­quet­ta meet­ing:

"In 2020 they ran a cam­paign de­pict­ing African peo­ple eat­ing grass. You did the sen­si­ble thing and re­ject­ed Kam­la and UNC. In 2023 gen­er­al elec­tion, UNC cam­paigned try­ing to make their frail po­lit­i­cal leader look like she young and hip - talk­ing about Prince Swan­ny, 'rest in peace' and quot­ing K-Li­on lyrics. We re­ject­ed that too! Every time you open so­cial me­dia, you'll find we broth­ers and sis­ters who we know what they say­ing they don't be­lieve it in their heart. We know they sell out... if UNC feel in­flu­encers who can't in­flu­ence you to go a 'zest' or a boa­tride coud in­flu­ence our ed­u­cat­ed African, East In­di­an, Syr­i­an, Chi­nese youths in this Cor­ri­dor...!

UNC Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la can­di­date Shiv­ana Sam at Tues­day's San­gre Grande meet­ing:

"Our youths are job­less, they're forced to mi­grate to ur­ban cen­tres, break­ing apart fam­i­lies and weak­en­ing com­mu­ni­ties. Un­der the PNM, youth em­ploy­ment rose ...am I right? Youth em­ploy­ment rose! Par­tic­u­lar­ly in rur­al ar­eas! The clo­sure of Petrotrin alone cost over 4,000 di­rect and in­di­rect jobs."

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young at Mon­day's La Hor­quet­ta meet­ing:

"Every time around elec­tion time you al­ways have peo­ple sell­ing snake oil, promis­es, peo­ple telling lies and peo­ple try­ing to mis­in­form. But we're lucky in T&T we have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to judge - 41 PNM can­di­dates ver­sus a pick-up side on the oth­er side, and to judge by ac­tions not words. I'm ask­ing you, as some­one who cares deeply about T&T - mea­sure the PNM team by its ac­tions over the last nine and half plus years ..."

UNC San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ken­wyn Phillips at Tues­day's San­gre Grande meet­ing:

"I'm say­ing to the un­de­cid­eds in To­co/San­gre Grande who are on the fence - in my moth­er's home there are many man­sions, come home to the House of the Ris­ing Sun! ... If God for­bid PNM win this elec­tion, cra­paud smoke we pipe, it have no com­ing back for T&T so we de­pend­ing on To­co/San­gre Grande - I'm on my bend­ed knees to To­co/San­gre Grande: give the cor­po­ra­tion and peo­ple a chance to strive un­der the Peo­ple's Na.. Part­ner­ship!"

PNM Ch­agua­nas East can­di­date Richie Sookhai at Tues­day's Ch­agua­nas East meet­ing:

"Do not be fooled - do not watch par­ty, watch the in­di­vid­ual, what he can bring to the ta­ble! ... Look at the wash-ups they put as can­di­dates in these seats and you tell me if they could tru­ly rep­re­sent all yuh or they good for they self, their pock­et, their friends, their fam­i­ly!"

UNC San­gre Grande (North West) coun­cil­lor Nas­sar Ho­sein at Tues­day's To­co/San­gre Grande meet­ing:

"You peo­ple must be pre­pared! I can safe­ly say that of all the peo­ple in elec­tion, the street cap­tains are the ones who win any elec­tion and we got to be pre­pared! We must have our ma­chin­ery in place, the ground folks are the ones who must win this elec­tion. So peo­ple, I beg you not to change your minds on elec­tion day and say 'well boy, ah cook­ing'. No, you've got to come out and vote!"