Ak­leea­ha Stafford, a con­tro­ver­sial so­cial me­dia per­son­al­i­ty known for her vlog The Re­al Raw Talk, is con­test­ing the San Fer­nan­do East seat un­der the All Peo­ple’s Par­ty (APP) in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The an­nounce­ment came in a video post­ed on so­cial me­dia by APP po­lit­i­cal leader Kezel Jack­son, who in­tro­duced Stafford as part of a “bal­anced” slate of can­di­dates.

Stafford, known for her out­spo­ken on­line pres­ence, said she chose to join the APP be­cause of Jack­son’s lead­er­ship.

“I have al­ways, since this par­ty has be­gun, I have been look­ing on,” she said. “And what sold me is Ms Kezel Jack­son’s abil­i­ty to lis­ten, to un­der­stand.”

She crit­i­cised main­stream po­lit­i­cal par­ties for fail­ing to pro­vide clear plans for the coun­try.

“The peo­ple, oth­er peo­ple, oth­er par­ties have not an­swered the ques­tions. And they nev­er have an an­swer. They al­ways want to tell you, this one do this and this one do that and point fin­gers, but she had an an­swer,” Stafford said.

She de­scribed her can­di­da­cy as an ef­fort to break the po­lit­i­cal cy­cle.

“I want to rep­re­sent San Fer­nan­do East to break that strug­gle. I want to show that every­thing could change and that the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go se­ri­ous­ly will change.”

Jack­son framed Stafford’s se­lec­tion as part of a broad­er com­mit­ment to grass­roots lead­er­ship.

“I want some­body on the ground that un­der­stands the is­sues of the peo­ple and has the courage with­out fear or favour to fight for it,” she said.

In a point­ed re­mark ref­er­enc­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning—who held the San Fer­nan­do East seat for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for decades—Jack­son said, “ Lis­ten, I want to put flow­ers on your grave this evening. You know why? Be­cause San Fer­nan­do East will re­turn to some­one that loves San Fer­nan­do East.”

Man­ning’s son, Bri­an Man­ning, is the in­cum­bent PNM MP for the con­stituen­cy.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing Stafford’s con­tro­ver­sial rep­u­ta­tion, Jack­son de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion.

“It may be con­tro­ver­sial be­cause you make a lot of en­e­mies when you speak the truth. She dared to chal­lenge sta­tus quo. She dared to chal­lenge stig­mas. She dared to chal­lenge stereo­types.”

The an­nounce­ment drew mixed re­ac­tions on­line. One com­menter dis­missed Stafford’s can­di­da­cy as “a big pap­pyshow.” Jack­son re­spond­ed, “And your gov­ern­ment is the whole blink­ing cir­cus.”

Jack­son re­jects UNC’s coali­tion

Mean­while, Jack­son, in a so­cial me­dia video, re­ject­ed an in­vi­ta­tion from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to dis­cuss a po­ten­tial coali­tion ahead of the elec­tion.

“I say no coali­tion here,” Jack­son de­clared.

She said she re­ceived a mes­sage from Fer­os Khan, the UNC’s na­tion­al cam­paign man­ag­er, and sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai, re­quest­ing a meet­ing with her at the par­ty’s Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters.

Her re­sponse was un­equiv­o­cal. “Tell Kam­la, I want to re­move her. Tell her that there is no coali­tion to be had. Yeah, no meet­ing will be had. No coali­tion will be had.

“Most of the peo­ple are in fear. They are cow­ard, they don’t think that they can stand alone to fight.But this fight is a fight for David, and I am com­ing for the po­lit­i­cal Go­liath,” she said.