DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Tu­na­puna, Es­mond Forde, is seek­ing to se­cure a hat-trick and win the seat again for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), though he yes­ter­day ac­knowl­edged the chal­leng­ing road ahead.

He made the com­ment while ad­dress­ing re­porters fol­low­ing a walk­a­bout in his con­stituen­cy with Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, where sup­port­ers gath­ered en masse. 

This was Young’s first vis­it to an­oth­er con­stituen­cy since be­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter and an­nounc­ing the elec­tion date.

Al­though he ex­pressed grat­i­tude for be­ing cho­sen, Forde de­scribed the lead-up to his se­lec­tion as a “tur­bu­lent time” de­spite his track record. How­ev­er, he did not ex­pand on that sen­ti­ment.

He ex­plained that al­though the com­mu­ni­ty should be a wa­ter­shed, the wa­ter was be­ing di­vert­ed to oth­er ar­eas, leav­ing Mara­cas Val­ley on a sched­uled wa­ter sup­ply.

An­oth­er chal­lenge in­volves the con­struc­tion of a road­way from Five Rivers, which in­cludes a bridge over the cause­way. Forde said this would mit­i­gate against the po­ten­tial wors­en­ing of traf­fic prob­lems with the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) plan­ning to de­liv­er 200 hous­es on Cau­ra Road and 25 on Scott Street in Tu­na­puna. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, crime and em­ploy­ment re­main sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns.

He said de­spite these con­cerns, he aims to at­tract both sup­port­ers and non-sup­port­ers.

“You have to en­com­pass the whole con­stituen­cy, and that is what I’ve been try­ing to show Bal­isi­er House and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ex­ec­u­tive. It’s not on­ly about the PNM peo­ple; it’s about the Hin­dus, it’s about the Mus­lims, well, we have to say the Chi­nese now too. It’s about the Cau­casians, it’s about the Africans. So I need to en­com­pass all.”

He be­lieves this in­clu­siv­i­ty is why peo­ple con­sid­er him a strong rep­re­sen­ta­tive, as he is of­ten seen in peo­ple’s homes. He feels this net­work­ing will help peo­ple ap­pre­ci­ate him and his par­ty, in­clud­ing PM Young.

Forde said he had no ap­pre­hen­sion about any po­ten­tial chal­lenger, dis­miss­ing ru­mours of a ri­val can­di­date.

“There was a strong ru­mour of Mr Jack Warn­er com­ing. There was a very strong ru­mour, heavy, heavy ru­mour. Over Car­ni­val, I met his two sons. I know them be­cause I was in­volved in foot­ball. So, I con­front­ed them, and they said, ‘Mr Forde, dad­dy is not com­ing. Dad­dy is over with it. So, who­ev­er they send, we’ll be ready. I have a head start.”

For­mer Tu­na­puna MP Ed­ward “Ed­die” Hart, who served three terms over a 15-year pe­ri­od with the PNM, ex­pressed his full con­fi­dence in Young and Forde ahead of the polls. He de­scribed the PNM as “the on­ly true par­ty” and praised Row­ley for his “mag­nif­i­cent job” in pass­ing the ba­ton to Young. How­ev­er, Hart called for greater ef­forts to en­gage com­mu­ni­ties and iden­ti­fy tal­ent­ed ath­letes to fur­ther de­vel­op the sports sec­tor.

“I would like to see a re­sump­tion of that. I would like to see tal­ent scouts go­ing out there un­earthing the tal­ent that we have,” he said.

PNM sup­port­ers such as Tu­na­puna re­tiree Lor­na Graves, 74, spoke high­ly of their rep­re­sen­ta­tive, stat­ing they are “red and ready” to sup­port him.

Graves cred­it­ed Forde with fix­ing roads and pave­ments, as well as en­sur­ing that peo­ple had “food to eat” dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

A few non-PNM sup­port­ers, who spoke anony­mous­ly to Guardian Me­dia, ex­pressed mixed views. A clothes ven­dor near the Tu­na­puna mar­ket said they had lit­tle to com­plain about, aside from crime, which is a na­tion­al is­sue. How­ev­er, a shoe re­pair­man said Forde shook his hand twice be­tween 2010 and 2020 to se­cure his vote for the gen­er­al elec­tions of those years but did noth­ing af­ter­wards.

A mar­ket ven­dor, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, com­plained about poor light­ing in the mar­ket, in­ad­e­quate ven­ti­la­tion, and un­san­i­tary fish vend­ing sta­tions, adding that cus­tomers sweat while shop­ping. He said ven­dors pay their dues and re­new their li­cence fees, amount­ing to al­most $100,000.

He ac­knowl­edged that Forde works hard but ex­pressed the need for bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

“He’s try­ing, but the Cor­po­ra­tion is not try­ing hard enough where the mar­ket is con­cerned.”

Tu­na­puna res­i­dent Rae Seabrun, who does not sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty but votes based on the rep­re­sen­ta­tive, said that while more can be done, she be­lieves her MP is work­ing hard.

“We don’t have to de­pend all the time for the gov­ern­ment to do every­thing; we can help our­selves. But at the same time, you need as­sis­tance and guid­ance, which comes from the gov­ern­ment. Es­mond Forde has been do­ing a lot. Like every­thing else, he’s an in­di­vid­ual, and all of us will have our is­sues. He tries his best. He has done good while he was here,” she said.

The UNC has not yet re­vealed its can­di­date for Tu­na­puna, but Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that she has “full con­fi­dence” in their abil­i­ty to win both Tu­na­puna and the gen­er­al elec­tion.