True or false?

Af­ter Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of­fi­cials al­leged the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) was pay­ing peo­ple $300 for their vote, the UNC has, in turn, ac­cused the PNM of be­ing be­hind a video show­ing a per­son with a UNC T-shirt and mon­ey in­side of it.

The video sur­faced on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, show­ing a man, whose face is not shown, un­wrap­ping a yel­low UNC jer­sey which al­leged­ly con­tained $300 in as­sort­ed notes. The man urged peo­ple to come out to paint the town yel­low.

Yes­ter­day, the PNM al­so said they had re­ceived re­ports from peo­ple—in­clud­ing from La Hor­quet­ta and Laven­tille West—that they were of­fered yel­low T-shirts with mon­ey in it.

A UNC state­ment yes­ter­day said the par­ty had tak­en note of the video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia. “The video was no doubt cre­at­ed in an at­tempt to add cre­dence to Kei­th Row­ley’s bo­gus claims the UNC has been en­gag­ing in buy­ing votes.

“The UNC con­demns this bla­tant at­tempt by the PNM and their op­er­a­tives to ac­cuse the UNC of this shame­ful act. We al­so call on the PNM to con­demn this, as we should be fo­cus­ing on the re­al is­sues af­fect­ing the peo­ple,” the UNC said.

On whether the UNC found any tan­gi­ble PNM ef­fort be­hind the video, UNC PRO Ani­ta Haynes said it was strange the video fol­lowed Row­ley’s claims that the UNC was pay­ing peo­ple $300 for votes.

An unidentified elderly man chats with UNC supporters during their walkabout in Valencia on Wednesday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

“And no one even asked for proof of that claim. We ig­nored him in the first in­stance...we went through Email­gate. So we know they’d say any­thing to win,” Haynes said.

“The UNC urged our can­di­dates to fol­low par­ty guide­lines to con­tin­ue a safe, eth­i­cal, re­spect­ful and ho­n­ourable cam­paign. UNC al­so urged vot­ers to “... Ask re­al ques­tions of their can­di­dates —what are their plans for job cre­ation? Crime con­trol? Our chil­dren’s fu­ture?’’

How­ev­er, PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing de­nied the par­ty had any hand in the video.

“We have al­so seen the video. It’s on so­cial me­dia and it was re­ferred to me. But that video wasn’t done by PNM,” Leza­ma-Lee Sing told Guardian Me­dia.

“How­ev­er, we’ve had a num­ber of peo­ple—some of whom may or may not be PNM sup­port­ers—who over the last two weeks have ex­pressed dis­gust with the fact that some of them were of­fered T-shirts and in this was $300. They re­ceived yel­low T-shirts. Some said they were of­fered this to go and walk with peo­ple.

“But some of the peo­ple said they re­ject­ed it out­right and oth­ers said they took the mon­ey and told (those of­fer­ing it) to go. Every elec­tion you hear of this com­ing from the UNC—it’s a par­ty tac­tic. We con­demn these types of of­fers and won’t be dis­tract­ed and we en­cour­age peo­ple to fo­cus on the is­sues.”

Leza­ma-Lee Sing couldn’t give specifics be­yond say­ing re­ports came from La Hor­quet­ta and Laven­tille West. She said PNM was log­ging the re­ports.

—Gail Alexan­der