Gail Alexan­der

Red! Yel­low!

The PNM yes­ter­day boast­ed of a 15-mile long mo­tor­cade led by po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley which made its way through parts of Trinidad cli­max­ing its elec­tion 2020 cam­paign. UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar al­so led a large mo­tor­cade yes­ter­day af­ter­noon in east Trinidad and along the East-West cor­ri­dor.

At the end of last night’s PNM ac­tiv­i­ties—and hours away from to­mor­row’s gen­er­al elec­tion—mem­bers of the rul­ing par­ty lashed out at Per­sad-Biss­esar’s re­cent de­nial of knowl­edge of an ad which the PNM had de­mand­ed be re­called.

Row­ley had slammed the ad which showed black peo­ple whom he said were por­trayed as des­ti­tute. He ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of a “dis­grace­ful, dis­gust­ing” in­sult to all black peo­ple of T&T and he took is­sue with ba­nanas shown in an­oth­er ad which he said in­ferred that mon­keys ate ba­nanas and were an in­di­rect ref­er­ence to black peo­ple.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar, when asked by re­porters about it said she didn’t know what ad they were re­fer­ring to, de­nied there was such an ad and re­ferred queries to her com­mu­ni­ca­tions team.

Her as­sort­ed com­ments prompt­ed PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma- Lee Sing to say yes­ter­day: “Every right-think­ing cit­i­zen who saw that Trin­i­ty ad on her Face­book page be­fore it was delet­ed are just as ap­palled as the PNM is n how black peo­ple are treat­ed at the hands of the UNC and how they’re re­al­ly viewed by that par­ty. We have all seen how they have used peo­ple in this cam­paign, sub­tly and bla­tant­ly.

“Mrs Per­sad- Bisses­sar says she doesn’t know about the ad? But her re­spons­es to the me­dia were very telling. he nev­er seems to know about con­tro­ver­sial is­sues or things that are dif­fi­cult things to deal with and that is a les­son to the coun­try on her lead­er­ship.

“We have al­so dis­cov­ered fliers done by UNC sources show­ing black peo­ple eat­ing grass with the claims that ‘this is how it will be un­der Kei­th Row­ley. How far will the UNC go to try to steal peo­ple’s minds? The PNM and the coun­try con­demn this be­hav­iour and the UNC’s use and abuse of T&T’s black peo­ple. No, UNC, no!”

Leza­ma-Lee Sing said the PNM’s mo­tor­cade was 15 miles long at some points head­ing east­wards. Row­ley in the mo­tor­cade sport­ed a red po­lo shirt and red mask.

Leza­ma-Lee Sing spoke from Ch­agua­nas East where some PNM mo­tor­cades con­verged last night as the par­ty’s Big Red day end­ed just af­ter 8 pm. Ch­agua­nas East can­di­date Clarence Ramb­haratm who has been sup­port­ed by forme MP Mustapha Ab­dul Hamid, came off the mo­tor­cade ve­hi­cles to greet peo­ple along the route.

The PNM’s all-day mo­tor­cade got off to a de­layed start just af­ter 9 am due to rain and over­cast skies in the north. Mo­tor­cades did the cir­cuit in their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cies and as the weath­er cleared the par­ty pro­ceed­ed with its plan for all con­stituen­cies to move to­geth­er,

Mo­tor­cades from var­i­ous ar­eas con­verged at the East­ern Main Road then pro­ceed­ed to Ari­ma, San­gre Grande and La Hor­quet­ta.

PNM ve­hi­cles fly­ing the Bal­isi­er red had been up and down the high­way since mid-morn­ing yes­ter­day. Al­so mak­ing its way along the high­way through Cen­tral, down to Moru­ga were three large mu­sic trucks sup­port­ing UNC Moru­ga can­di­date Michelle Ben­jamin’s cam­paign

The ear­li­er in­clement weath­er didn’t put off PNM’s San Fer­nan­do West sup­port­ers who moved through the con­stituen­cy yes­ter­day back­ing can­di­date Faris Al Rawi. That ex­treme­ly long mo­tor­cade wend­ed its way thor­ough Mara­bel­la close to 4 pm in a long file. Sup­port­ers came out of their ve­hi­cles to wave flags and prance on the pave­ment in Mara­bel­la, mu­sic pound­ing from their mu­sic trucks, play­ing Al Rawi’s “Get It Done” theme song and oth­ers. The mo­tor­cade head­ed north.

About an hour lat­er, the yel­low flag be­decked mo­tor­cade of UNC’s Sean Sobers al­so made its way along the South­ern Main road, near Bat­too Lands.

Back in Port-of-Spain af­ter 6 pm, an­oth­er PNM mo­tor­cade pa­rad­ed around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

UNC paint­ing Cor­ri­dor yel­low

The UNC split its mo­tor­cades in­to three phas­es start­ing last Fri­day, and con­tin­u­ing yes­ter­day, con­clud­ing to­day.

The par­ty held mo­tor­cades in the cen­tral ar­eas Fri­day, in San Fer­nan­do West and East-West cor­ri­dor ar­eas yes­ter­day, and will con­clude in Siparia, Fyz­abad and sur­round­ing ar­eas to­day.

Po­lit­i­cal leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar head­ed the par­ty’s mo­tor­cades in the East-West Cor­ri­dor which splashed the UNC’s sig­na­ture yel­low in large streams of flag-tot­ing sup­port­ers in ve­hi­cles and vans. She be­gan in La Hor­quet­ta around 3 pm, head­ed through Tu­na­puna and St Joseph and San Juan where she spoke to sup­port­ers at the El So­cor­ro South recre­ation ground.

By 8 pm she was leav­ing San Juan to head to San Fer­nan­do West then go on to Moru­ga lat­er last night.

Spir­its were high among sup­port­ers in oth­er ar­eas. Along the high­way, a UNC mo­tor­cade was seen emp­ty­ing from the El So­cor­ro/Aranguez dis­tricts close 5.30 pm, halt­ed at a bar on the east­bound side. Sup­port­ers in their yel­low T-shirts and ve­hi­cles with flags were seen milling around in­side and out­side of the bar.

Both the PNM and UNC went through con­stituen­cies that are cru­cial to the out­come of to­mor­row’s poll, par­tic­u­lar­ly mar­gin­als La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, To­co/San­gre Grande, St Joseph, San Juan/Barataria, San Fer­nan­do West and Moru­ga/Table­land.