Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

“I’m pre­pared for the neg­a­tives as well as the pos­i­tive,” says Jack Warn­er.

With that po­si­tion, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) front­lin­er Jack Warn­er has side­stepped crit­ics of his front­line role in the UNC’s ac­com­mo­da­tion and con­tin­ued his walk­a­bouts—in­clud­ing in heavy rain last Sat­ur­day in Mara­bel­la West which the UNC is seek­ing to win in the Au­gust 14 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

Warn­er’s con­tro­ver­sial le­gal is­sue-laden past as well as his present has been a point of con­tention by some in the cam­paign in­clud­ing in the UNC.

But Warn­er, 80, who sur­vived a life threat­en­ing bout with COVID-19 in Sep­tem­ber 2020, has made it clear that his on­ly wish in his post-COVID in­car­na­tion now is to help peo­ple wher­ev­er he can. Af­ter be­ing hos­pi­talised with COVID, he was sub­se­quent­ly very frank on how fright­ened he was and that he had prayed like nev­er be­fore to over­come it.

Warn­er, who has tak­en in the con­cerns and crit­i­cisms of crit­ics with equa­nim­i­ty, has been the “star” of UNC’s walk­a­bouts in many ar­eas where he has been can­vass­ing, in­clud­ing with the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) in the last week—Lopinot, Ari­ma, Bon Air. In one area a wheel­chair-bound woman wait­ed at a junc­tion to see the team as they passed since her area has a NTA can­di­date.

Last Sat­ur­day amid heavy rains in Mara­bel­la West—in the San Fer­nan­do bat­tle­ground the UNC has tar­get­ed to wrest from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­trol—Warn­er demon­strat­ed how cam­paign­ing goes in such weath­er, lead­ing the team out in the rain to the “Train Line” area.

Al­so on the walk­a­bout was UNC’s Mara­bel­la West can­di­date John Ali-Bo­cus, San Fer­nan­do area co-or­di­na­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, NTA leader Gary Grif­fith and mem­bers of the OW­TU’s Pointe-a-Pierre branch which is sup­port­ing the ac­com­mo­da­tion in the elec­tion.

Warn­er waved to peo­ple who called out to him, and a cou­ple reached to shake hands with him through bur­glar proof­ing in pour­ing rain. There were shouts, “Time for PNM to go! Time for them to go!”

He can­vassed peo­ple in ar­eas where pic­tures of the PNM’s can­di­date were promi­nent. Warn­er and the team greet­ed peo­ple in their ham­mocks or who came out. A woman hugged Grif­fith. A man shel­tered un­der a large card­board square hold­ing hands with Warn­er in the rain. An el­der­ly woman prayed with the group.

Tonight the UNC ac­com­mo­da­tion will be in Ch­agua­nas where of­fi­cials said sur­prise guests may be present. On Thurs­day, the ac­com­mo­da­tion will be with the OW­TU at Palms Club, San Fer­nan­do.