JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Lee Sing says excitement building over his new party

by

Gail Alexander
2044 days ago
20191002
Louis on the floor:
Former Port-of-Spain Mayor Louis Lee Sing, says excitement is building about his new political party

Louis on the floor: Former Port-of-Spain Mayor Louis Lee Sing, says excitement is building about his new political party

Abraham Diaz

The rul­ing PNM says ex-mem­ber Louis Lee Sing's plan to con­test the 12 seats in the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion is no threat to its hold on those seats. How­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion UNC be­lieves Lee Sing can do some dam­age to PNM votes there.

Lee Sing's as yet unan­nounced po­lit­i­cal par­ty and its bid for the 12 seats in the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion, which he once head­ed, has been the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion in po­lit­i­cal cir­cles since he con­firmed his plans to Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day. The par­ty's can­di­dates will be pre­sent­ed in a few weeks.

PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings said yes­ter­day: "There' s no con­test. (Lee Sing's) par­ty pos­es no threat to PNM. We'll re­tain all Port-of-Spain seats. Whether he has for­mer PNM coun­cil­lors as can­di­dates or not, peo­ple will vote PNM.

"We're cam­paign­ing vig­or­ous­ly in all ar­eas and we plan to hold that Cor­po­ra­tion's seats. I can't say if he has a vendet­ta or not, all I know is there's no com­pe­ti­tion."

UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader David Lee, how­ev­er, said: "I wish Mr Lee Sing well in his en­deav­ours in the po­lit­i­cal are­na. I don't think UNC votes will be im­pact­ed, he might take PNM votes. As a past Port-of-Spain may­or, he can do dam­age to their votes."

Lee Sing said yes­ter­day: "In Port-of-Spain's his­to­ry on­ly one par­ty, the PNM, has been in charge and if it is that we're com­fort­able with what we have af­ter 60 years, that's fine. But if we feel we de­serve more and that an­oth­er group will look af­ter our in­ter­ests bet­ter, we need to elect an­oth­er."

Lee Sing, who had been a mem­ber of the PNM from age 14, served as may­or of Port-of-Spain from 2010-2013. He re­signed from the PNM in 2015 af­ter dif­fer­ences with the Row­ley lead­er­ship. He said then that there was "too much bit­ter­ness and ac­ri­mo­ny" in the par­ty and he wasn't about blind loy­al­ty.

The ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple in his new par­ty are from PNM.

Lee Sing has writ­ten to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) seek­ing a meet­ing to fi­nalise the new par­ty. He's seek­ing a sym­bol in­cor­po­rat­ing the sym­bol for POS in it, but many de­funct par­ties list­ed with EBC have the same sym­bol, he said.

"Peo­ple who are ex­cit­ed about an al­ter­na­tive have called me. Oth­ers have al­so ex­pressed con­cern for my well-be­ing, get­ting in­volved in this. Oth­ers want to know why we're lim­it­ing our­selves to Port-of-Spain, but it's not about vendet­ta. Vary­ing lev­els of im­prove­ments are re­quired in Port-of-Spain, even with the PNM in gov­ern­ment and we feel we can sup­ply im­prove­ments," Lee Sing said.

The group's fo­cus is Wood­brook and East Port-of-Spain and can­di­dates for those ar­eas in­clude for­mer PNM coun­cil­lors, he re­vealed.

"Our slo­gan in­volves leav­ing Port-of-Spain bet­ter than we're see­ing it now. It's in vary­ing stages of de­cay, hu­man filth on many street cor­ners, peo­ple beg­ging alms on oth­ers and some aren't home­less, they're sim­ply com­ing to Port-of-Spain to beg.

"We al­so want to com­plete a pro­gramme start­ed in my tenure—re­mov­ing and re­plac­ing the thou­sands of la­trine pits in East Port-of-Spain. You need prop­er bath­rooms in Man­dela Park, you can't have sports peo­ple uri­nat­ing on the trees and we'd want to com­plete the Des­per­lie Cres­cent com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre. We need to cre­ate more jobs in Port-of-Spain and re­or­gan­ise traf­fic flow, so taxi stand lo­ca­tions and park­ing will be im­por­tant," he said.

Lee Sing said his par­ty al­so plans to speak with city busi­ness­men and the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

"Port-of-Spain, which has 13 po­lice sta­tions, should be the safest. Why it isn't is some­thing we will work on. We know as we ad­vance there will be de­trac­tors and sup­port­ers, but we would like if sup­port­ers con­tribute to the work that's ahead," he said.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored