Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

As the bat­tle cries and ral­ly­ing calls echoed Sat­ur­day from the var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal plat­forms and mo­tor­cades, next comes to­day's last-minute cam­paign­ing in cru­cial pock­ets and re­li­gious ser­vices and prayer by var­i­ous con­stituen­cies.

Fi­nal day sweeps by par­ties of elec­tion day ma­chin­ery—the fi­nal fac­tor to vic­to­ry—are on. And last­ly: over to the 1,154,708 vot­ers for their ver­dict af­ter weeks of hear­ing po­lit­i­cal play­ers' pitch.

PRIME MIN­IS­TER STU­ART YOUNG at last Thurs­day’s PNM San­gre Grande meet­ing:

“… In­tim­i­da­tion and vot­er sup­pres­sion are crim­i­nal of­fences; in­tim­i­dat­ing peo­ple to try and af­fect how they vote and pre­vent them from vot­ing or telling them how to vote is a crim­i­nal of­fence ... I have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to talk to you about some of the ill events, gang­ster­ism and thug-like be­hav­iour that un­for­tu­nate­ly those on the oth­er side are en­gag­ing in … But if it’s one thing I take se­ri­ous­ly, it is my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to T&T, and I’m fear­less! I’ll al­ways fight for what is right—and I’m fight­ing for your right to vote for who you want to vote for ... We must be able to de­cide our own des­tiny. We’ll not al­low any­body with their ‘Yel­low is the Code’ or what­ev­er it is to threat­en—and they’re threat­en­ing our se­nior cit­i­zens ... all over T&T! This isn't the way to win an elec­tion! It’s your right to vote for who you want!”

UNC LEADER KAM­LA PER­SAD-BISSES­SAR at last Thurs­day’s Moru­ga meet­ing:

"Af­ter 530 bil­lion, half a tril­lion dol­lars spent, that's the lega­cy of this PNM Gov­ern­ment. PNM means ‘Peo­ple Nev­er Mat­ter’! Place your first vote for the UNC! Next to the ris­ing sun! Be­cause when UNC wins, every­body wins! We are on the cusp of one of the most mo­men­tous elec­tions in our beloved na­tion’s his­to­ry. What you de­cide Mon­day in the vot­ing booth will de­ter­mine your fu­ture and your fam­i­ly's for gen­er­a­tions to come. We have the ini­tia­tives, we have the so­lu­tions, we have the pur­pose. A new ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der my lead­er­ship will open new op­por­tu­ni­ties and im­ple­ment in­no­v­a­tive, ur­gent­ly need­ed so­lu­tions to ad­dress our na­tion’s needs."

PNM LA HOR­QUET­TA CAN­DI­DATE FOS­TER CUM­MINGS at last Thurs­day’s San­gre Grande meet­ing:

"I’m see­ing good, good, good news here for your MP Roger Mon­roe—your MP to­day and your MP af­ter Mon­day the 28th. I like the vibes in this meet­ing. When I look at you, I wish I could take all of you down to La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro where we could go down there and show those peo­ple who try­ing to in­ter­fere with PNM busi­ness … So when they come to you and tell you 'Yel­low is the Code', you just say to them, 'Red is the word! Red is the word! Red is the word!'"

UNC HOST ANIL ROBERTS at Thurs­day's Moru­ga meet­ing:

"I want to tell Stu­ar­tie and Row­ley some­thing—if you touch the PSA pres­i­dent, if you open yuh mouth on her again, you will get a wet­ting from the Dougla like you nev­er get be­cause that is we sis­ter! So take my ad­vice, Stu­ar­tie, take my ad­vice, Stu­ar­tie—leave she alone! Leave the PSA pres­i­dent Ms Thomas alone be­cause I have plen­ty thing for yuh—but not tonight."

PNM DEPUTY LEADER RO­HAN SINANAN at Thurs­day’s San­gre Grande meet­ing:

"They're walk­ing up and down To­co/San­gre Grande promis­ing all kinds of things ... I heard of a video by Gary Grif­fith ... our can­di­dates are walk­ing with peo­ple from this area. Look at Roger Mon­roe's op­po­nent and who he's walk­ing with—90 per cent of them aren't from here and 100 per cent of them are peo­ple who you will not like to be liv­ing among ... I'm con­cerned if a for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er can tell you what he's see­ing is Life Sport 2 in the mak­ing here."

UNC EN­TER­PRISE COUN­CIL­LOR BREN­DA JOHN at Thurs­day's Moru­ga meet­ing:

"Stu­art Young, our Prime Min­is­ter as they said, is treat­ing T&T like a di­vorced woman. He is putting and say­ing every­thing in your ears that you want to hear. Where the mil­lion dol­lars for the divers dem that per­ished? You said you of­fer­ing the fam­i­ly and giv­ing dem a mil­lion dol­lars—where it is? Don't be­lieve all the lies they're telling you all ... nine years, one road in En­ter­prise, didn't pave—now Richie paving road in John­ston Street. One road in nine years—this is how a di­vorced woman feels! I came the first year and paved Bhadase Street ... Mr Row­ley's fam­i­ly live in En­ter­prise and they came per­son­al­ly and thanked me ...!"

NTA ARANGUEZ/ST JOSEPH CAN­DI­DATE GARY GRIF­FITH at Wednes­day's St Joseph meet­ing:

"One po­lit­i­cal par­ty—I wouldn't call the UNC's name—the po­lit­i­cal plan they have for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, they got it here! The Min­istry of Jus­tice—I draft­ed it and for the la­dy to have the au­dac­i­ty to say it's not true—I asked her to give me the lee­way to show the emails of the pre-2010 when I draft­ed the Min­istry of Jus­tice plans for you. But you didn't have the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to im­ple­ment it prop­er­ly. All of the things they talk about, they don't know how to im­ple­ment it ... re­mem­ber the TV se­ries 'Every­body Loves Ray­mond'? Well, every­body wants to be like Gary ...!"