Kinetic Mas copped this year’s Port-of-Spain City Corporation Downtown Carnival Parade of the bands, large band category, as Mayor Joel Martinez described the 2020 celebrations as safe and incident-free.
The band won with the portrayal, ‘Mas Pieta’.
The Mayor said he had no issues with the high presence of police officers carrying assault rifles through the public during Monday and Tuesday Mas.
Some expressed concerns with the optics of that policing practise saying it was unnecessary in some spaces, particularly the Main Stage at the Queens Park Oval but Mayor Martinez said it is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
“If you didn’t have any, they would have had a complaint, now that you have a situation where they are fully armed with any expectation for any incident that could happen, there is a complaint, where do you draw the line? I believe Carnival is a time where all our state agencies should function at full capacity and I think that no measure is too much.”
Commissioner Gary Griffith also defended that practise saying that the officers needed to be prepared for any occurrence and that it defused a potential gang attack on Carnival Monday.
Ronnie and Caro placed behind Kinetic Mas with ‘The Serengeti’ and last year’s winner The Lost Tribe rounded off the top three with their ‘Anansi’ portrayal.
Meanwhile K2K Alliance & Partners won the medium band category with their ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ portrayal. The First Citizens Original Jab Jab won the small band category with ‘Power of the Plants’ and Simply Cultural Minstrels’ ‘They Coming Again’ copped the mini band title.
There was no surprise in the Road March competition as Neil Iwer George and Kees Dieffenthaller’s Stage Gone Bad was played 86 times. The race was not even close as the second place went to Iwer, Machel and Skinny Fabulous’ Conch Shell which was played 26 times and Lyrikal’s Rukshun was played 12 times for third place.