CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader, Mick­ela Pan­day, and her moth­er, Oma Pan­day, shared an emo­tion­al mo­ment at the Es­per­ance Com­mu­ni­ty Com­plex af­ter cast­ing their bal­lots this morn­ing.

The two women broke down in tears as Mick­ela re­called the en­cour­ag­ing words of her late fa­ther, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, who had al­ways urged her to give her best.

"Don't wor­ry, Mom. Take your time. It's emo­tion­al. It's very emo­tion­al. Don't wor­ry, Mom," Mick­ela said to a teary-eyed Oma.

Speak­ing with re­porters, Mick­ela said she be­lieved her fa­ther would have been proud of her.

"He'd say, 'Go get them, Mick.' Yeah, 'Go get them.' And he would al­ways ask me, 'Did you do your best?' And yes, we did. And he'd say, 'That's good enough.' So we're hap­py. I think Mick did her best," she said.

When asked about her po­lit­i­cal fu­ture and whether she saw her­self en­ter­ing a coali­tion with any of the oth­er par­ties, Mick­ela said it would have to be dis­cussed.

"I don't make uni­lat­er­al de­ci­sions. It will be based on what our sup­port­ers want. But we field­ed 37 can­di­dates in this elec­tion, and I'm re­al­ly proud of that. Sec­ond on­ly to the PNM — we have two can­di­dates in To­ba­go — and we're just proud. I feel we've al­ready won, even be­fore the re­sults come out," she said.

The younger Pan­day ex­pressed pride in her team's ef­forts.

"It's good. It's good. We're hap­py. We're hap­py with how things are go­ing. Every­body worked so hard. We didn't have the fi­nances that the oth­ers had, so we went back to old-school cam­paign­ing—the old-time days. I think peo­ple re­spect­ed the way we con­duct­ed our cam­paign, with no vit­ri­ol or hate. The young peo­ple stood up so strong. I'm so hap­py," she said.