Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

First-time UNC can­di­dates for con­stituen­cies are vow­ing to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life through var­i­ous pro­grammes while en­hanc­ing se­cu­ri­ty in the var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties they plan to serve.

Dur­ing the UNC's com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing at the Ari­ma North Sec­ondary School on Fri­day night, some of the par­ty's new­com­ers urged the pub­lic to con­sid­er their op­tions for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions lat­er this month and make a de­ci­sion in the best in­ter­est of their fam­i­lies and their long-term ben­e­fit.

The can­di­date for Lopinot/Arou­ca, Dr Na­tal­ie Chai­tan Ma­haraj, re­called her ex­pe­ri­ences meet­ing and hear­ing from con­stituents dur­ing a walk­a­bout just be­fore ar­riv­ing at the meet­ing.

Dr Ma­haraj said her in­ter­ac­tion took place through a gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty, not­ing that de­spite rel­a­tive com­fort, sev­er­al res­i­dents were con­cerned for their fu­tures.

"In the past, I have had peo­ple come out and say, 'We're com­fort­able,' mean­ing they're not sure about what they're go­ing to do. But this evening they came out and said they're sure about what they're do­ing.

"In their res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties that look com­fort­able, that look sta­ble, but make no mis­take, no one is safe with this Gov­ern­ment. They're not sure that their job will be there in the next five years; they're not sure they will be com­fort­able."

Re­fer­ring to a brief con­ver­sa­tion with a moth­er of two who shared her dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the cur­rent state of the pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, Ma­haraj said the con­cern for the qual­i­ty of schools was a wide­spread sen­ti­ment as she promised a high­er stan­dard of schools if the UNC was elect­ed.

Ma­haraj's op­po­nent from the PNM is Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who is al­so the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

She said teach­ers would be giv­en prop­er in­cen­tives in keep­ing with the per­for­mance of stu­dents, while schools would be equipped with psy­chol­o­gists, doc­tors and po­lice of­fi­cers.

Can­di­date for Trinci­ty/Mal­oney Richard Smith al­so said that based on his in­ter­ac­tions through walk­a­bouts, there was a pre­vail­ing sen­ti­ment of dis­sat­is­fac­tion with rep­re­sen­ta­tion, as he felt many peo­ple were more re­cep­tive to the idea of a po­lit­i­cal change.

Smith, who is al­so a for­mer po­lice­man, lament­ed that his con­stituen­cy, like oth­ers across T&T, faced their fair share of chal­lenges from crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty, as he knocked his op­po­nent Camille Robin­son-Reg­is over what he de­scribed as her fail­ure to pro­vide con­sis­tent rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

"You on­ly see her when it's time for the gen­er­al elec­tion; you don't see her at all. She's a ghost, but you on­ly see her for gen­er­al elec­tion.

"But I will tell you some­thing: the peo­ple of Trinci­ty/Mal­oney, MP doesn't stand for Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, but for Miss­ing Per­son."

The UNC's can­di­date for Mau­si­ca/Mal­abar, Do­minic Smith, al­so ap­pealed to the pub­lic, par­tic­u­lar­ly young peo­ple, to care­ful­ly con­sid­er their op­tions as he out­lined chal­lenges faced by some young peo­ple in find­ing mean­ing­ful em­ploy­ment.