RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With just over a week be­fore vot­ers head to the polls, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced that the PNM's in­ter­nal polls show a clear lead in sev­er­al key con­stituen­cies—in­clud­ing Ch­agua­nas East, To­co/Man­zanil­la, Ma­yaro, San Fer­nan­do West, and pos­si­bly Moru­ga/Table­land.

Speak­ing at a cam­paign meet­ing held at the Moru­ga Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School on Sat­ur­day night, Young urged sup­port­ers to be vig­i­lant against what he de­scribed as UNC pro­pa­gan­da.

“I saw the lat­est polls,” Young said to loud ap­plause.

“The PNM is lead­ing. The UNC is un­der se­ri­ous pres­sure in San Juan/Barataria, Ch­agua­nas East, To­co/Man­zanil­la, and Ma­yaro. And if we stay the course—Moru­ga/Table­land will be ours," he de­clared, as sup­port­ers blew horns and waved flags.

Young warned that as elec­tion day draws near, sup­port­ers should brace for what he called an “on­slaught of lies and fake polls” from the Op­po­si­tion UNC.

"My mes­sage is—we are less than ten days away from the elec­tion. Let me warn you, next week the UNC will step up its mis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign and try to mis­lead. I told you, from to­mor­row they will start with fake polls."

He re­mind­ed the crowd that, un­like oth­ers, he re­mained vi­brant, en­er­gised, and bat­tle-ready with his PNM team to lead Trinidad and To­ba­go through tur­bu­lent times.

Blast­ing the Op­po­si­tion for what he termed “des­per­a­tion pol­i­tics”, Young said, “In San­gre Grande, their can­di­date can’t even speak prop­er­ly. And now, when they run out of ideas, they turn to race. They’re say­ing, ‘Run the Chi­nese out of town.’ But we love the Chi­nese in Trinidad and To­ba­go. That’s not who we are.”

He urged Moru­ga/Table­land to re­ject what he de­scribed as the chaos and con­fu­sion of the UNC and em­brace what he called a bold, new chap­ter of lead­er­ship and in­tegri­ty.

“PNM tim­ing and strat­e­gy are work­ing. The tra­jec­to­ry is mov­ing up­wards to vic­to­ry on April 28. That’s be­cause the lead­er­ship is struc­tured and knows what it's do­ing. Be fo­cused.”

He al­so said that the PNM's in­ter­nal polls showed the UNC was los­ing San Fer­nan­do West.

"In San Fer­nan­do West, they’ve melt­ed down be­cause Faris is putting a lick­ing on them. Tu­na­puna seat, (Es­mond) Ford is bring­ing them home."

Young al­so spoke about his role in se­cur­ing T&T’s en­er­gy fu­ture, ref­er­enc­ing a re­cent call from US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio.

“Yes­ter­day, I had a phone call from the Sec­re­tary of State and he said, 'We will work with Young and find a way for Trinidad and To­ba­go to get the en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty that we need.'

"They said—and I quote the Sec­re­tary of State—'The Sec­re­tary recog­nised the strate­gic im­por­tance of T&T’s en­er­gy ini­tia­tives and Young’s ef­fec­tive lead­er­ship in this area'."

He em­pha­sised that on­ly the PNM could steer T&T through tur­bu­lent wa­ters.

“Glob­al­ly, you see what is tak­ing place. One of the prob­lems we’ve had since 2014 was when the UNC messed up our forex. In that short pe­ri­od of time, I found an in­no­v­a­tive way to deal with forex. Give me five years, and I will show you what we can do,” Young said.

Al­so speak­ing at the meet­ing was PNM can­di­date for Moru­ga/Table­land Lisa At­wa­ter, who promised to set up an agri­cul­ture/agro-pro­cess­ing school.