Sascha Wil­son

For­mer UNC coun­cil­lor-now PNM can­di­date for Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la Mar­cus Gird­harie was greet­ed with a lusty ap­plause by sup­port­ers as he ar­rived to file his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at the Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary School. Ten min­utes ear­li­er, UNC can­di­date Sasha Ali ar­rived at the same venue, with Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, seek­ing to re­turn the seat to the UNC.

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter they filed their pa­pers, both can­di­dates were con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry at the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls on Au­gust 14. Ali told re­porters, "I am in it to win it so my chances are great. I am here to serve the peo­ple and for those who know me know I al­ways give my best foot for­ward and Trinidad and To­ba­go need a chance. We need a se­cure Trinidad and To­ba­go so I am here to help work to­wards that."

Ali, a new­com­er in the po­lit­i­cal are­na, said she did not think Gird­harie's switch to the PNM would af­fect her chances of win­ning the seat. "No, I am fo­cus­ing on my suc­cess and ad­vo­cat­ing for peo­ple with­in my com­mu­ni­ty so I know I am go­ing to do a good job," she said. Con­fi­dent of claim­ing the seat he held on a UNC tick­et for three years, Gird­harie told re­porters res­i­dents sup­port his de­ci­sion to cross the floor.

"The dis­trict is one that is di­verse, we do have in­di­vid­u­als that will vote on par­ty, in the dis­trict, ob­vi­ous­ly I would have won in the past with some places be­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and some places los­ing that point in time to the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment. How­ev­er, dur­ing my term of of­fice the serv­ing was across the board.

It was not for the per­sons who would have been UNC. I would have served the en­tire dis­trict and for that rea­son per­sons have seen the val­ue of the work I do as a coun­cil­lor and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for them. So that we do that an­tic­i­pate that the move to the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment would be one that is seen as a neg­a­tive."

He was ac­com­pa­nied by Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein and PNM As­sis­tant Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Pa­tri­cia Alex­is. The PNM and the UNC are con­test­ing the nine elec­toral dis­tricts in the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, but dur­ing the last tenure the PNM held six seats while the UNC held three seats.