DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

De­feat­ed Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Mover­ment (PNM) can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West, Faris Al-Rawi, has told par­ty sup­port­ers that there will be a dif­fi­cult po­lit­i­cal jour­ney ahead.

“Folks of the PNM, ex­pect six months of ter­ror, tor­ture, lies, friv­o­li­ty, and per­se­cu­tion. And even though we have a tremen­dous­ly strong leader whom I back, as you all know, pub­licly, it re­quires every one of us in our red army–those that came out, those that stayed home, be­cause they didn’t go some­where else–to stand up in de­fence of this na­tion," Al-Rawi told a group of sup­port­ers who had gath­ered op­po­site Pres­i­dent's House to con­grat­u­late Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les af­ter she re­ceived her in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment.

"It is now that we’re re­quired to be each oth­er’s keep­ers and to watch what is go­ing to hap­pen. I am ac­tive­ly prepar­ing for that. And I know, hook, line or sinker, all the way for­ward, Pen­ny has my undy­ing sup­port as does the PNM,” he added.

“So let us be weary that we are in a war and the war has cy­cles and get ready be­cause they have ma­li­cious in­tent.”

Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land shared his emo­tion­al re­ac­tion to the day’s events. He said he had felt down­trod­den en­ter­ing Pres­i­dent’s House but was up­lift­ed by Beck­les’ speech, which he de­scribed as in­spir­ing.

“I ask Trinidad and To­ba­go to mark to­day as a red-let­ter day, pun in­tend­ed, where we are on the way back to serv­ing the peo­ple as we ought to be.”

Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle echoed this sen­ti­ment, promis­ing Beck­les the team’s full sup­port and pledg­ing to fight for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“She has our back 100% and will fight for Trinidad and To­ba­go and will en­sure that the PNM is vic­to­ri­ous,” he said, al­so de­scrib­ing her ad­dress as “in­spir­ing and up­lift­ing.”

“I want to thank you for be­ing on time,” Mar­celle added, draw­ing laugh­ter as he ref­er­enced Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s late ar­rival to her own swear­ing-in last Thurs­day.

Mean­while, Arouga/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les praised Beck­les’ tone and vi­sion for the fu­ture.

“If we have to take from Pen­ny’s page, the poise and the dig­ni­ty and the deco­rum that is re­quired for us to be lift­ed high­er, Pen­ny rep­re­sents for us how we need to con­duct our­selves even when things do not go our way.”

He al­so com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing her lead­er­ship in Par­lia­ment, promis­ing to help shoul­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of hold­ing the Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able.

Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga added his voice, ex­press­ing con­fi­dence that Beck­les will lead “with grace, poise, and dig­ni­ty.”

Bri­an Man­ning, look­ing ahead, said he was com­mit­ted to re­spon­si­ble op­po­si­tion and con­fi­dent that the PNM will re­turn to gov­ern­ment soon.

Both Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, who lost his bid for Aranguez/St. Joseph, and Roger Mon­roe, who was un­suc­cess­ful in To­co/San­gre Grande, reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to the Op­po­si­tion Leader and the PNM.