Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@guardian.co.tt

A stark con­trast in styles on Nom­i­na­tion Day led to one par­ty ac­cus­ing the oth­er of us­ing Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) work­ers to bol­ster their crowd sup­port on nom­i­na­tions day in San­gre Grande. In a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion where dis­tricts are won and lost by as lit­tle as 150 votes, at times there is very lit­tle to sep­a­rate the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). How­ev­er, yes­ter­day at the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) of­fice along Brier­ly Street, they could not be more dif­fer­ent.

From 9:45 am in the dis­tance, a mu­sic truck could be heard blar­ing PNM’s “Let’s do this” cam­paign song. Round­ing the cor­ner, five of the eight PNM can­di­dates who had to reg­is­ter at that of­fice came with dozens of sup­port­ers wav­ing flags and bal­isi­er flow­ers. On the oth­er hand, the UNC can­di­dates came with a hand­ful of qui­et sup­port­ers with­out mu­sic, ban­ners, or any in­ten­tion of speak­ing with the me­dia.

“The can­di­dates will not be con­duct­ing any in­ter­views,” UNC elec­tions co­or­di­na­tor Joseph Toney told the Guardian Me­dia. When pressed for a rea­son he would not give one.

Mean­while, the PNM can­di­dates were all too hap­py to be in­ter­viewed. While there are no re­turn­ing can­di­dates from the 2019 slate, the par­ty has brought back Ali­cia Thomas, a for­mer coun­cil­lor for San­gre Grande North­west to wres­tle away that dis­trict which they lost in 2019 thus break­ing the 2016 4-4 dead­lock and giv­ing the UNC con­trol of the cor­po­ra­tion.

“With hard work and ded­i­ca­tion, I will take it back, be­cause I was here in 2014 when the UNC had it and I took it back, that’s why I’m back, to get it back this time,” Thomas said, flanked by her fel­low can­di­dates.

The PNM can­di­dates were led by To­co/San­gre Grande MP Roger Mon­roe who said they are con­fi­dent of re­gain­ing con­trol of the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion be­cause the UNC blew their op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“Peo­ple told us they don’t even know who their coun­cil­lors are, they didn’t even see them af­ter elec­tions.”

Mean­while, there was a solemn mo­ment when the out­go­ing coun­cil­lor for Va­len­cia East/To­co Ter­ry Ron­don gave new can­di­date Ani­cia Williams-Pen­ny his bless­ing af­ter 28 years in lo­cal gov­ern­ment.

“Re­mem­ber, that the peo­ple are first, God’s bless­ings from To­co with love Ani­cia,” Ron­don said, sur­round­ed by par­ty sup­port­ers and can­di­dates.

Guardian Me­dia pressed again for an in­ter­view from the UNC con­tin­gent af­ter they filed their nom­i­na­tions. This time Toney would on­ly say, “All I have to say is that I am very sor­ry that the PNM had to bring out so many URP and CEPEP work­ers this morn­ing and pre­vent­ed them from do­ing an hon­est day’s work, that’s all I have to say.”

He took no fur­ther ques­tions.