Gail Alexan­der

Not tak­ing it on.

That was ba­si­cal­ly the re­ac­tion from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to the fact that es­tranged one-time PNM deputy leader Nafeesa Mo­hammed is now sup­port­ing the UNC’s San Juan Barataria can­di­date Sad­dam Ho­sein.

PNM Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing said, “We live in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety and peo­ple are free to make their choic­es as they feel.”

PNM’s San Juan Barataria can­di­date Ja­son Williams said he wasn’t fo­cused on Mo­hammed’s back­ing of his UNC op­po­nent.

“I’m forg­ing on. The feed­back on the ground is good, the mo­men­tum is there—I feel the love. We’ve set a gold stan­dard with no mud­sling­ing,’’ Williams said.

“I’m go­ing about my busi­ness to mo­bilise peo­ple, make them feel they be­long and for love of coun­try and com­mu­ni­ties. What­ev­er the re­sult, I’m at peace with it. I just try as I’ve al­ways done and will con­tin­ue to do—to put my best foot for­ward.’’

Out­go­ing UNC MP Dr Fuad Khan said, while he was hap­py to see Mo­hammed sup­port Ho­sein, “I’d like to see her fill out a UNC mem­ber­ship form and put on a UNC jer­sey. She’ll help him every more that way.”

Laurel Lezama-Lee Sing

“I re­mem­ber for (this) elec­tion a mem­ber of the Mo­hammedville clan went for screen­ing for the PNM but some­one else got the can­di­da­cy and it didn’t go down too well in Mo­hammedville. Hope­ful­ly, with her res­ig­na­tion from PNM, Mo­hammedville will sup­port UNC. But if she joins UNC and wears the yel­low it will tru­ly an­swer ques­tions on whether her move was due to dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the PNM or re­al­ly love of the UNC and Sad­dam.’’

Mo­hammed has been es­tranged from the PNM since Feb­ru­ary 2018 when po­lice de­tained her nephew Tariq and 14 oth­ers con­cern­ing the plot to dis­rupt Car­ni­val that year.

US Em­bassy of­fi­cials con­firmed there was in­deed a plot.

Mo­hammed’s short-term con­tract as a le­gal ad­vis­er with the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice was ter­mi­nat­ed af­ter so­cial me­dia car­ried re­ports that Mo­hammed had post­ed a Face­book state­ment which spoke about a “ca­bal” and some peo­ple be­ing an­ti-Mus­lim.

Four months af­ter her nephew’s de­ten­tion and her bust-up with the PNM she greet­ed UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at an Eid func­tion at the Nur E Is­lam masjid in her area but dead-end­ed talk she might be con­sid­er­ing cross­ing to UNC.

When the PNM’s term be­gan, Mo­hammed was at the fore­front of the fight to se­cure the re­lease of five T&T men who were de­tained in Venezuela on al­leged ter­ror­ism charges since 2014 dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship’s (PP) tenure.

Fuad Khan

She’d been crit­i­cal of the sit­u­a­tion which oc­curred un­der then.

They were re­leased af­ter serv­ing time, fol­low­ing talks Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley held in 2016 with vis­it­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro.

Four years be­fore her un­cle Ka­malud­din Mo­hammed died, Mrs Mo­hammed said Row­ley’s vis­it to her un­cle had helped heal the 28-year-old frac­ture be­tween Mr Mo­hammed and the par­ty and added that it was “a gen­uine, touch­ing mo­ment.”

Mo­hammed who’s worked with the Mus­lims of T&T and oth­er groups has al­so as­sist­ed fam­i­lies seek­ing the wel­fare of rel­a­tives at Mid­dle East refugee camps which house sur­vivors of Is­lam­ic State fight­ers.

In 2017, it was con­firmed 130 T&T peo­ple - fight­ers and fam­i­lies - went to ISIS con­flict zones over 2012-2015.

Mo­hammed has said T&T Mus­lims don’t sub­scribe to what ISIS was in­volved in and she’s of­ten con­demned broad-brush­ing of lo­cal Mus­lims as ex­trem­ists.