Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) Po­lit­i­cal Leader Mick­ela Pan­day in­tends to file an of­fi­cial com­plaint with the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour about “scare tac­tics” against her mem­bers al­leged­ly by two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Pan­day con­firmed this yes­ter­day af­ter a press con­fer­ence at the Steel Work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SWUTT) head­quar­ters in Cal­i­for­nia where she of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced her 37 can­di­dates in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. The par­ty would not be con­test­ing the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin West, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West and Point Fortin seats.

The par­ty was sched­uled to put for­ward can­di­dates for all 41 con­stituen­cies. But on Nom­i­na­tion Day last Fri­day, it was re­vealed that on­ly 37 can­di­dates had filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.

In a re­lease, the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front al­leged their prospec­tive can­di­dates pulled out of the race due to scare tac­tics

In the re­lease, the par­ty said since an­nounc­ing its in­ten­tion to con­test all seats, “ha­rass­ment and in­tim­i­da­tion of our can­di­dates be­gan. This con­tin­ued af­ter the an­nounce­ment of our sec­ond and third batch of can­di­dates on the 10th and 28th of March re­spec­tive­ly, by some high-rank­ing mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment and the op­po­si­tion.

“The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front strong­ly con­demns this be­hav­iour. Over the past weeks, and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the days lead­ing up to Nom­i­na­tion Day, our can­di­dates have faced re­lent­less pres­sure, in­clud­ing threats to their per­son­al safe­ty, pro­fes­sion­al liveli­hoods, and fam­i­lies.

“This bla­tant abuse of pow­er is not on­ly un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, it is a des­per­ate at­tempt by the es­tab­lish­ments to si­lence ris­ing voic­es of change and to hold on to a sys­tem that con­tin­ues to fail the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The par­ty ex­plained, “As a di­rect re­sult of this tar­get­ed ha­rass­ment, four of our prospec­tive can­di­dates made the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion not to sub­mit their nom­i­na­tions to­day (Fri­day). Their de­ci­sion was root­ed in con­cern for the safe­ty of their fam­i­lies and the in­tegri­ty of their pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tions.”

Pan­day told re­porters yes­ter­day that the mat­ter was in the hands of her at­tor­neys. 

“The first thing that we did is that we spoke to our le­gal team and I think that is equal­ly im­por­tant. But, yes we will be mak­ing a com­plaint.”

The com­plaint is to be lodged with the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour.

While she ex­pects more mud­sling­ing from her op­po­nents, she said she is not con­cerned about the safe­ty of her can­di­dates as the elec­tion draws near­er. 

“We have a le­gal team to pro­tect us. You would have seen this hap­pen to me in 2020 where an­oth­er can­di­date—he’s a can­di­date now—lied about me and I took him to court, and I got the sec­ond high­est award of defama­tion in the coun­try. We are go­ing to fight.”

Ef­forts for a re­sponse to the claims from UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo and PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings were un­suc­cess­ful.

Re­ject­ing claims by her op­po­nents that her par­ty is be­ing fi­nanced by the PNM, she said that is a des­per­ate at­tempt to de­flect from their fail­ures and dis­cour­age the pub­lic from vot­ing for re­al change.

Call­ing on the UNC and PNM to pub­licly dis­close their source of fund­ing, she said, “The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front is will­ing to open all our ac­counts to pub­lic scruti­ny.”

Speak­ing from “the heart,” she said her fa­ther, the late for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, found­ed the UNC, and spent his life fight­ing against the PNM, and “so it is deeply be­yond be­lief” that Op­po­si­tion mem­bers who knew her from child­hood would align her with the PNM.

Promis­ing to bring “fast re­lief” to cit­i­zens, if elect­ed to of­fice, Pan­day list­ed sev­er­al ini­tia­tives in­clud­ing cre­at­ing safe zones in com­mu­ni­ties, pro­tect­ing the bor­ders, in­tro­duc­ing Work for Change pro­gramme for at-risk youths, re­mov­ing VAT from es­sen­tial food items, crack­ing down on price goug­ing and in­creas­ing the min­i­mum wage.

SWUTT leader backs Pan­day

Steel Work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley is back­ing the Mick­ela Pan­day-led Pa­tri­ot­ic Front. Bai­ley, who was present at PF’s press con­fer­ence at the SWUTT head­quar­ters in Cal­i­for­nia yes­ter­day, said they “tried” the PNM and UNC pre­vi­ous­ly. 

“I think she is gen­uine. Her par­ty at the end of the day is a par­ty that has no skele­tons and from a prin­ci­pled per­spec­tive con­sid­er­ing that we have tried both par­ties be­fore I see no is­sue sup­port­ing Pa­tri­ot­ic Front.”

While he is sup­port­ing her in his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty, he said his ex­ec­u­tive are “fans” of Pan­day, and has not raised any ob­jec­tions to him sup­port­ing the PF.

The Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion are mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’s coali­tion of in­ter­ests which al­so in­cludes the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty and the LOVE par­ty.