Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has de­nied claims by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that the UNC is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP).

Re­spond­ing to the al­le­ga­tion dur­ing a mo­tor­cade through his Oropouche East con­stituen­cy on East­er Mon­day, Dr Mooni­lal said, “We have no arrange­ment, no agree­ment, no noth­ing. We have al­ways worked and co­op­er­at­ed with the op­po­si­tion in To­ba­go. We have nev­er sup­port­ed the PNM in any form or fash­ion.”

He added that the UNC con­tin­ues to re­spect the peo­ple of To­ba­go and the po­lit­i­cal par­ties that have emerged from the is­land.

“We give max­i­mum re­spect and space for them to con­duct pub­lic af­fairs in a man­ner that they choose to,” Mooni­lal said.

He de­scribed Dr Row­ley’s com­ments as a des­per­ate at­tempt to scare loy­al To­ba­go sup­port­ers in­to re­main­ing with the PNM.

“I think Row­ley is try­ing, in a des­per­ate bid, to in­stil some type of mor­bid fear in the minds of what he be­lieves to be diehard To­ba­go PNM sup­port­ers. But I don’t think that will work,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Mooni­lal, the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion will be de­cid­ed by per­for­mance, not fear.

“This coun­try now is fed up and tired of the Row­ley-Stu­art-Cum­mings team. They have achieved pre­cious lit­tle. They have de­stroyed a lot of in­sti­tu­tions. They have sent peo­ple in­to pover­ty, job­less­ness, star­va­tion,” he said.

He ac­cused the PNM of lead­ing the coun­try in­to a crime cri­sis and fail­ing to of­fer so­lu­tions.

“They could not do it in ten years. They will not do it in ten days. The elec­tion will be de­ter­mined by the par­ty with the pol­i­cy, with the lead­er­ship, with the per­son­nel, and with the po­lit­i­cal will and dri­ve that can bring change,” he said.

Dr Mooni­lal said the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing wide­spread de­pres­sion and suf­fer­ing, and that the UNC re­mains the on­ly po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion of­fer­ing hope.

He said peo­ple across vil­lages, towns, and cities are de­clar­ing—both loud­ly and silent­ly—that the time for change has come.

Call­ing on cit­i­zens to go out and vote, Mooni­lal said sup­port must ex­tend be­yond ral­lies.

“Elec­tions are not won by polls. It is not won by peo­ple. We had a mas­sive mo­tor­cade to­day. We had 125 cars at 9 am be­fore we even start­ed. We are do­ing cap­sules on ra­dio. So we ex­pect more peo­ple to join,” he said.

He urged peo­ple to take ac­tion on elec­tion day.

“We can­not bring about change with­out ac­tu­al vot­ing. It can­not be just mo­tor­cade, it can­not be polls, it can­not be fine speech­es. We call up­on the peo­ple: April 28, they took away your job. You must take away their job,” he said.

Dr Mooni­lal al­so dis­missed a call by Head of the Repa­tri­a­tion Com­mit­tee Dr Nizam Mo­hammed for Mus­lims to with­hold their vote.

Not­ing that the Op­po­si­tion can­not cre­ate pol­i­cy, Dr Mooni­lal said the UNC will be­gin dis­cus­sions with in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions to repa­tri­ate na­tion­als once in of­fice.