Renu­ka Singh

"The per­son I was be­fore, is no more.”

This is how Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­date for Par­latu­vi­er/L'Anse Four­mi/Spey­side in the De­cem­ber 6 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, Fran­ka Cord­ner, last night ad­dressed wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed videos al­leged­ly show­ing her danc­ing lewd­ly and a short au­dio clip in which she den­i­grates fel­low par­ty mem­ber and To­ba­go East MP Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy.

In the au­dio clip, a woman who sounds like Cord­ner de­scribes Web­ster-Roy as look­ing old and says Web­ster-Roy was lucky that she (Cord­ner) did not "take her man.” In the video clips mean­while, a woman is seen danc­ing lewd­ly, in­clud­ing one with a man, at so­cial pub­lic events.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a meet­ing in Belle Gar­den/Glam­or­gan, Cord­ner told sup­port­ers that she had "walked in her truth” and blamed "friends and rel­a­tives" who want­ed to see her fail for shar­ing the videos and au­dio clip on so­cial me­dia.

Say­ing she had found her­self in the midst of a tur­bu­lent storm, Cord­ner said, “What has been re­vealed in this storm, ladies and gen­tle­men, it is the need for us right-think­ing peo­ple to be­come even more con­scious of our en­vi­ron­ment and es­pe­cial­ly those who pro­pose to be friends, and even rel­a­tives, but sit in wait­ing plot­ting your demise and will­ing to con­fer with those op­pose to your de­vel­op­ment and sit and watch you fall to the ground.”

Dis­card­ing her speech and say­ing she need­ed to speak from her heart, Cord­ner told the gath­er­ing, “Just like every young per­son in To­ba­go, we have friends in whom we trust­ed but some­times those peo­ple we trust don’t even love us.”

Ges­tic­u­lat­ing to get Web­ster-Roy’s at­ten­tion, she said, “I want her to un­der­stand that the per­son I was be­fore is now more. You know what’s fun­ny about this sto­ry, is that even some­times when you are try­ing to do bet­ter there are peo­ple who just can’t see it.

“And I said the things I said and I’m not go­ing to use my young­ness to say well ah was right, no, of course, I was wrong, I was very, very wrong. And you see the thing is when it is that your op­po­nents know your strength they will use it against you and ah want to tell the PDP tonight, you didn’t bring me down you re­leased the war­rior in me. So ah know that the in­ten­tion was to get Fran­ka out of the race but guess what I am ready for war.”

Her state­ment elicit­ed cheers from the PNM sup­port­ers.

She said when­ev­er a woman of­fered them­selves up for po­lit­i­cal or oth­er forms of lead­er­ship po­si­tions, this is what they face.

"Men don't go through that but we do and we have to stop that to­day. We have to put an end to that now. The con­tin­u­a­tion of such ac­tions should not hap­pen no more," she said.

Point­ing out that po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents had al­so tried to de­stroy Web­ster-Roy in the process, Cord­ner said she had since called her (Web­ster-Roy) in tears and apol­o­gised, “They don’t know that you (Web­ster-Roy) are a moth­er and you un­der­stand. … I called her as ah moth­er and I said you know what I am sor­ry be­cause in or­der to go for­ward you must stand in your truth and you must ac­cept what you did. Some per­sons can’t even stand in their truth on the oth­er side.”

Web­ster-Roy had ear­li­er de­fend­ed Cord­ner as the par­ty’s choice, call­ing her a "PNM sis­ter and a PNM daugh­ter.”

"I want to give some words of en­cour­age­ment to my sis­ter Fran­ka this evening," Web­ster-Roy said as she ad­dressed Cord­ner di­rect­ly.

"Fran­ka, lis­ten to me, what your op­po­nents meant for evil, God will turn in­to good. When your op­po­nents thought they were go­ing to beat us down, the both of us, God go­ing to el­e­vate us. When your op­po­nents an­tic­i­pate that you would bow your head in shame, God go­ing to lift your head and po­si­tion you to take the elec­toral dis­trict of Par­latu­vi­er/Lanse Fo­rum for­ward.”

Web­ster-Roy said that "this" should be a les­son for PNM sup­port­ers and urged Cord­ner to “use this as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be the best ser­vant and leader the elec­toral dis­trict has ever seen.”