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:

PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley at Wednes­day’s Diego Mar­tin meet­ing:

"I’ve watched this elec­tion from the side­lines for the first time and I no­tice a char­ac­ter about it: those op­posed to us are spe­cial­ists in talk­ing about what you 'not get­ting' and what they go give you - spread­ing fear, ha­tred and ab­solute horse ma­nure! … id­iots ... po­lit­i­cal nitwits and nin­com­poops stir­ring you up ... UNC is a mag­net for peo­ple who the po­lice look­ing for. Pro­tect your coun­try ... a group that wants to run T&T - 25 per cent have is­sues with the po­lice! What the hell is wrong with you all?! A set­ta peo­ple who are of in­ter­est to the po­lice say­ing they in front in the elec­tion and if they are, you'll be way, way in the back be­cause when they fin­ish with you, you wouldn't make out your own be­hind? ... My biggest fear is that you would gam­ble and lose. Be­cause when UNC wins, every­body loss!"

TPP leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine at Wednes­day's TPP To­ba­go meet­ing:

"When they think you’re dead, tell them you'll rise again… we go­ing to wash every bad-mind­ed­ness and spir­it out of this place ... the rev­o­lu­tion from De­cem­ber 2021 must con­tin­ue ... April is a good time to rise again To­ba­go (but) … it’s not enough to show up here in our hun­dreds. We have to go out and bring the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty along with us…we have to help car­ry the en­tire is­land... I even telling Wat­son vote TPP! I telling Ayan­na, Ger­ry, the In­de­pen­dent, Denise - we have room on the boat for you!"

UNC Oropouche East can­di­date Dr Roodal Mooni­lal at Wednes­day’s San Fer­nan­do meet­ing:

"The Red Par­ty is a Red Ants par­ty, they're run­ning up and down like red ants! They buy 500 yards of rib­bon! They will cut rib­bon to open a pot of pelau! They'll cut the rib­bon to open a wall. A stand­pipe! They're des­per­ate, they com­ing to cut rib­bon, they come with this bag of promis­es! But 'Promis­es Nev­er Ma­te­ri­alise - PNM.' That man­i­festo is ma­m­aguy on the eve of an elec­tion."

PNM Diego Mar­tin North East can­di­date Colm Im­bert at Wednes­day’s Diego Mar­tin meet­ing:

"... San­gre Grande is a bat­tle­ground seat - La Hor­quet­ta, Tu­na­puna, San Fer­nan­do West, To­ba­go is a bat­tle­ground. There­fore, I want you to talk to your fam­i­ly, friends, as­so­ciates! You must bring out every sin­gle PNM vote in bat­tle­ground seats! We can­not rest on our lau­rels in Diego Mar­tin. When I go on walk­a­bouts I can’t see them, find them, hear dem - you don’t know what’s go­ing on up there. Don’t be fooled! That’s not where the bat­tle is. It’s in the mar­gin­als! I'll find my­self in one of those mar­gin­als on elec­tion day. I go­ing up there to help them…”

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

"I'm ref­er­enc­ing what oc­curred in D'Abadie O'Meara in 2010. There’s a say­ing when you play with filthy an­i­mals you'll get fleas, if you sleep with the dev­il, there's go­ing to be a price to pay. We’re see­ing a can­di­date walk­ing with prob­a­bly every sin­gle gang­ster in this neck of the woods. They're walk­ing with these in­di­vid­u­als be­cause promis­es are be­ing made. Same thing that oc­curred in 2010 and caused the PP Gov­ern­ment's demise. There are two words for it - Life Sport. We must nev­er let San­gre Grande end up with an­oth­er Life Sport ...."

UNC host Anil Roberts at Wednes­day’s San Fer­nan­do meet­ing:

"There’s a fel­la walk­ing around San Fer­nan­do West...Faris al-Rawi walk­ing around San Fer­nan­do West say­ing ‘please vote for me, give me a job for five years again’. The on­ly things that’s got­ten big­ger is his chest and mus­cles as he tries to im­press you with brawn rather than brains!"

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young at Wednes­day’s Laven­tille meet­ing:

“One of the things a UNC gov­ern­ment did was fire me. I wasn’t a PNM mem­ber or as­so­ci­at­ed with PNM but I’d done work for gov­ern­ment un­der the PNM. By then I knew the on­ly par­ty that had prop­er poli­cies and cared about peo­ple was the PNM... I’d stand qui­et­ly in a cor­ner at PNM meet­ings from 2002, 2007 2010 and ... I felt a sense of right­eous­ness, jus­tice ... But if the UNC coali­tion gets back in pow­er, they’ll fire all of us again,”

UNC San Fer­nan­do East can­di­date John Al­i­bo­cus at Wednes­day's San Fer­nan­do East meet­ing:

“I'm sure it's al­so baf­fling to the late (San Fer­nan­do MP) Par­ick Man­ning - the de­plorable un­ac­cept­able state of San Fer­nan­do East ... Bri­an Man­ning - where art thou?! Fail­ure! No­body ent tak­ing no ma­m­aguy from you, boy. They 'red and ready?' Dey red and ready - to demit of­fice!"

PNM Diego Mar­tin West can­di­date Hans Des Vi­gnes at Wednes­day’s Diego Mar­tin meet­ing:

"I’d pledged to walk one mil­lion steps across Diego Mar­tin ... I’ve walked over 800,000 steps for you ... for every new, de­cid­ed and un­de­cid­ed vote I’ve walked. But many of them of­fer­ing them­selves to rep­re­sent you - not com­ing up dem hills!"