Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

A day af­ter the elec­tion bell rang, prospec­tive can­di­dates in the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy, for both the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), pound­ed the pave­ments, walk­ing and meet­ing res­i­dents in the area.

While NTA’s Mar­sha Walk­er said she has been hit­ting the ground since 2019, new­com­er, the PNM’s Hans des Vi­gnes, said yes­ter­day’s walk­a­bout at Up­per Haid Street was not his first.

Guardian Me­dia caught des Vi­gnes at St Nicholas Street on his meet and greet. Walk­ing through the con­nect­ing streets of Vine­yard, Jones and Abbe Pou­jade, des Vi­gnes and his team heard there were not enough youth-fo­cused pro­grammes to keep them off the wrong path.

Res­i­dents al­so com­plained about in­fra­struc­ture is­sues.

Res­i­dent Vin­cent Sylvester ex­plained, “We need prop­er drainage.”

Asked about his pre­de­ces­sor, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s sup­posed ab­sence, as claimed by some res­i­dents, des Vi­gnes said the con­stituents un­der­stood that lead­ing the coun­try made Row­ley scarce.

But he said, “I am here to serve.”

Asked about his school days and if he could be ac­cused of be­ing a bul­ly, in ref­er­ence to a bul­ly­ing in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young 33 years ago, des Vi­gnes chuck­led be­fore say­ing what was once con­sid­ered pic­cong is now bul­ly­ing.

“I had some ex­changes with class­mates and name-call­ing. But that died off a while ago. Now we have a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of how these things af­fect peo­ple. So no, I was not a bul­ly in school.”

As he walked, he met pas­tors, chil­dren, the el­der­ly and even dogs.

Walk­er, who spoke to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone, claimed among the many is­sues af­fect­ing res­i­dents of Diego Mar­tin West, hun­dreds of peo­ple el­i­gi­ble to vote in the con­stituen­cy were not reg­is­tered.

“You’d be sur­prised how many per­sons have nev­er vot­ed. So right now, there is a push whether we take them in­to max­is and car­ry them in Port-of-Spain. But we need, we need, we need, the EBC to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion. They can im­me­di­ate­ly put a field of­fice; we’re the on­ly bor­ough that does not have a field of­fice. And we’re be­ing asked to share as a bor­ough, one of­fice with Port-of-Spain, a city. So that’s ac­tu­al­ly what we are fever­ish­ly do­ing be­cause the EBC would cut off their reg­is­tra­tion dead­line very soon now that the bell has rung,” Walk­er said.

Walk­er said she’s a “vet­er­an” in the con­stituen­cy, hav­ing con­test­ed the seat for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in 2010. She lost to Row­ley.