The up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions have ig­nit­ed a de­bate among con­stituents of Laven­tille West over the fu­ture of in­cum­bent MP Fitzger­ald Hinds.

On Oc­to­ber 21, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) opened nom­i­na­tions for 15 con­stituen­cies, in­clud­ing Laven­tille West.

Hinds, who has been serv­ing as MP since 2015 is yet to of­fi­cial­ly re­veal whether or not he will be of­fer­ing him­self be­fore the par­ty’s screen­ing com­mit­tee to seek re-elec­tion. How­ev­er, his pop­u­lar­i­ty in the con­stituen­cy ap­pears to be tak­ing a blow.

On Wednes­day, a video sur­faced of mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy’s women’s league re­ject­ing Hinds’ pos­si­ble re­turn to rep­re­sen­ta­tion dur­ing a meet­ing on Mon­day.

But while the closed-door vot­ing process has since been deemed null and void due to breach­es in the process, those un­re­strict­ed by par­ty rules say their faith in Hinds has fiz­zled.

At­tor­ney and Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dent Ka­reem Mar­celle is be­ing tipped as a favourite to re­place Hinds in Laven­tille West.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Laven­tille West area where res­i­dents weighed in on whether or not Hinds should be giv­en an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to be their MP.

Speak­ing un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty a short dis­tance away from the Laven­tille West Con­stituen­cy sub-of­fice along Mar­cel­la Street, a woman said she be­lieved the cur­tains were com­ing down on Hinds’ ca­reer.

“Look when they had the meet­ing in Suc­cess, I was down there, it have young peo­ple, young boys and girls come with qual­i­fi­ca­tions and pass­es, every­thing. You know what the man tell them when they done talk and pour their heart out, he can’t do noth­ing. So why I must con­tin­ue vot­ing him? Man, throw he in the dust­bin yes.” 

The 47-year-old res­i­dent al­leged that when her close rel­a­tive was killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing years ago, Hinds, who had once been close to the fam­i­ly, of­fered no as­sis­tance.

“You know my fam­i­ly per­son­al­ly be­cause you used to be in my yard and you nev­er show your face.”

She not­ed that with the count­down to gen­er­al elec­tions of­fi­cial­ly on, change is nec­es­sary.

“We need change bad, be­cause he helps no­body. We don’t want hand outs we just want help with jobs—that and all hard. We don’t want no­body play­ing the fool, we want some­body to help the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Beetham Gar­dens en­tre­pre­neur, Shaz­im Lam­bert, 24, said even in Hinds’ role as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, he has been a mis­fit.

“Every­body was made for a task whether you like it or not you could be do­ing some­thing you like or some­thing you adapt to but that is just not his po­si­tion. I don’t think that is his po­si­tion, he may be good in an­oth­er field.”

Kester Ben­jamin ar­gued that Hinds had fall­en short in de­liv­er­ing tan­gi­ble re­sults.

“It will be dif­fi­cult to con­tin­ue with him, to me I am not re­al­ly see­ing a dif­fer­ence. All I am see­ing is more or less him com­ing and pos­ing and talk­ing and col­lect­ing a salary but you not see­ing what hap­pen­ing on the ground.”

An­oth­er Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dent, who asked not to be named, said res­i­dents would em­brace change.

“I wouldn’t sup­port Hinds go­ing back up, I rather give (Ka­reem) Mar­celle a try.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Mar­celle and Hinds for com­ments yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.

Shake-up com­ing?

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James says while de­ter­min­ing the pulse of the peo­ple re­quired more work, he an­tic­i­pat­ed the PNM may have a shake-up in their se­lec­tion of gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates.

“I don’t know who will re­place who but be­cause the Gov­ern­ment will want to re­new their com­mit­ment... they will have to sac­ri­fice one or two peo­ple who will think they should not be the sac­ri­fi­cial lambs.”

James said the con­stituen­cy ap­pears to be at a cross­roads and whether or not Hinds can bridge the di­vide and se­cure his po­si­tion for the gen­er­al elec­tion re­mains to be seen.