PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The race for Tu­na­puna be­gan yes­ter­day, with Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­date David Nahkid out­pac­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Es­mond Forde to the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer’s of­fice at the El Do­ra­do Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre to file nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.

Forde had looked set to be the sec­ond can­di­date to file pa­pers, af­ter the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty’s Mau­rice Downes, as he (Forde) walked along Col­lege Road with his con­tin­gent of red-clad PNM sup­port­ers at around 9.25 am when the UNC crew backed by mu­sic trucks emerged from El Do­ra­do Road.

“Well, we were up front. My team told me to dri­ve. I start­ed off dri­ving. But it is not me to sit down and just dri­ve. So I came out and we be­gan to walk up the road and we took our time. We are a lit­tle hu­mid and we are in a mask. We were walk­ing up the road. And when I looked down El Do­ra­do Road I saw a sea of yel­low, con­sist­ing of not Tu­na­puna peo­ple to start with,” quipped the in­cum­bent MP.

“And next thing, when we reached the top of Col­lege Road by my old col­lege, Hillview Col­lege, when I looked back, I no­ticed their team com­ing with a speed. I de­cid­ed I am not go­ing to speed up, I kept with my nor­mal pace, he passed and as he passed, I am a re­spectable young man, I said ‘David how are you go­ing? He looked back and waved to me.”

Nakhid said the ex­change was in good spir­it.

“We shared pleas­antries, it’s a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign, it’s a mat­ter for the coun­try. But there is no need for there to be any ran­cour or any bit­ter­ness,” Nakhid said.

UNC candidate for Tunapuna David Nakhid is surrounded by supporters after he signed his nomination papers at the El Dorado Community Center yesterday.

NICOLE DRAYTON

They emerged from the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer’s doors just un­der an hour lat­er. Dur­ing the time they spent in­side, their sup­port­ers, many of whom seemed to know each oth­er, trad­ed chants and con­ver­sa­tion to the mu­sic of the near­by trucks.

Both men ex­pressed con­fi­dence they would se­cure the seat.

“Well, we are ex­treme­ly con­fi­dent, we are work­ing hard on the ground and in the of­fices and we look for­ward to a clean cam­paign con­tin­u­ing the mo­men­tum and I think we in­tend to rep­re­sent the con­stituents of Tu­na­puna as they should be rep­re­sent­ed,” said Nakhid, a for­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball cap­tain.

“We are on the sec­ond phase now, the first phase where I would have been se­lect­ed as the can­di­date to be the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Tu­na­puna and to­day was the nom­i­na­tion Day where I signed with the gold­en pen,” Forde said.

Downes, who ar­rived with no sup­port­ing cast, con­duct­ed his busi­ness be­fore the bac­cha­nal that fol­lowed at 9.15 am. He too was con­fi­dent he could break the tra­di­tion­al hold on the con­stituen­cy.

“When in­ter­act­ing with the peo­ple in my con­stituen­cy, the com­mon cry is that we need a change be­cause red and yel­low have been in ex­is­tence and have been rul­ing this coun­try for the past 58 years,” Downes said.

“And to this day, we still have peo­ple suf­fer­ing, cry­ing out for jobs, we still don’t have wa­ter in our taps, so I be­lieve the birth of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty was in­deed time­ly and ready for the right now mo­ment to re­al­ly bring Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to a place where we could all move for­ward as a peo­ple.”