Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

With just days to go to the by-elec­tion in Lengua/In­di­an Walk, in­de­pen­dent can­di­date Pe­ter­son Morales is con­fi­dent he will win.

Al­though he got on­ly 32 votes in the 2021 by-elec­tion in Hin­dus­tan/St Marys, the chem­i­cal en­gi­neer be­lieves this time will be dif­fer­ent be­cause the elec­torate com­pris­ing more than 8,000 res­i­dents, is ready for a change.  

“I’m bet­ter known now. I’ve learnt a lot from that time. Al­so, in that par­tic­u­lar elec­toral dis­trict, there was a tie be­tween the two can­di­dates, the UNC and PNM, so ap­par­ent­ly the peo­ple were not sure what they want­ed, but now they have a choice and I think they will choose me,” he said yes­ter­day.

The 57-year-old New Grant res­i­dent said he de­cid­ed to fight the elec­tion as an in­de­pen­dent be­cause the two ma­jor par­ties seemed to have “some sort of bag­gage.”

Not­ing the fi­nan­cial con­straints at the UNC-con­trolled-Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Morales said he would do his best to rep­re­sent the peo­ple and be a present and ac­ces­si­ble coun­cil­lor.
 “We have a non-pres­ence of coun­cil­lors in the area gen­er­al­ly. It is an ac­cept­ed thing by the elec­torate. Af­ter the elec­tion, you don’t see the coun­cil­lor and we have grown ac­cus­tomed to that,”
he said.

If he wins, Morales plans to set up a mo­bile con­stituen­cy of­fice and meet with all prin­ci­pals and oth­er per­sons who deal di­rect­ly with chil­dren. He al­so wants to cre­ate a data­base of all the skilled peo­ple of em­ploy­able age to as­sist with em­ploy­ment. 

“I am telling the vot­ers that they will have a can­di­date who they can see, who they can touch. For the first time in their life, some­body who will be meet­ing every per­son in the dis­trict and know­ing what their skills are and the house­holds, I will know their in­di­vid­ual needs. I will know how many blind peo­ple in my con­stituen­cy, how many in wheel­chairs in my con­stituen­cy,” he added.

Fol­low­ing the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions last Au­gust, pre­lim­i­nary re­sults for Lengua/In­di­an Walk showed that PNM can­di­date Aut­ly Granthume got 1,430 votes while the UNC can­di­date Nicole Gopaul se­cured 1,425. At the re­quest of the UNC, there was a re­count that re­sult­ed in a dead­lock lead­ing the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) to or­der fresh elec­tions.  The UNC chal­lenged this move in the courts, but the Court of Ap­peal dis­missed the mat­ter. 

The  Quinam/Pe­nal seat be­came va­cant fol­low­ing the death of Diptee Ram­nath last De­cem­ber. By-elec­tions for both seats are card­ed for Mon­day with  Granthume, Gopaul and Morales con­test­ing Lengua/In­di­an Walk, while PNM can­di­date An­der­son Nanan and UNC can­di­date Sarah Sookdeo are con­test­ing Quinam/Pe­nal.