Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

With less than two weeks be­fore the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, ten­sions are ris­ing in Moru­ga/Table­land.

Sev­er­al ban­ners and posters be­long­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­dates have been van­dalised and re­moved through­out the con­stituen­cy.

How­ev­er, the UNC’s Michelle Ben­jamin and the PNM’s Lisa At­wa­ter have dis­tanced them­selves from any blame and called for peace.

Ben­jamin, the in­cum­bent MP for the con­stituen­cy, said this elec­tion was her fourth, and she has al­ways run a clean cam­paign.

Com­plain­ing that sev­er­al of her wood­en-framed ban­ners have been re­moved and her posters torn down in var­i­ous ar­eas, she said that on Mon­day, work­ers of a con­trac­tor, al­leged­ly hired by T&TEC, re­moved her 20-foot over­head ban­ner which was across the Moru­ga Road in St Mary’s Vil­lage.

“I’m ask­ing per­sons for peace to reign, for us to run a clean cam­paign and not to have fur­ther acts of van­dal­ism on ei­ther side. It is sad what would have oc­curred. Now, per­sons from the oth­er side, I think they are van­dal­is­ing, I’ll have to say, their own elec­tion day mer­chan­dise or elec­tion day para­pher­na­lia, ban­ners, but it’s not my side.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at her cam­paign of­fice in St Mary’s Vil­lage, Ben­jamin in­sist­ed that her cam­paign mes­sages were based on so­lu­tions to is­sues fac­ing con­stituents and de­nied en­gag­ing in gut­ter pol­i­tics.

She urged her sup­port­ers “to stay the course.” Ben­jamin added, “We have 12 days re­main­ing and the par­ty is on its way to vic­to­ry, and we are look­ing for a re­al so­lu­tion.”

When Guardian Me­dia caught up with At­wa­ter in Mon­key Town, New Grant, dur­ing her walk­a­bout, At­wa­ter said she would be tak­ing ev­i­dence to the po­lice on who is re­spon­si­ble for van­dal­is­ing her elec­tion para­pher­na­lia.

“We have in­struct­ed our peo­ple that when you go to put up a fly­er do not de­face any­body’s. We have video ev­i­dence of peo­ple mov­ing in ve­hi­cles. We can give you the ve­hi­cle num­ber. I am not go­ing down that road. We have ev­i­dence of peo­ple putting paint­ing on my posters.”

At­wa­ter said her cam­paign was based on hope, in­tegri­ty and hon­esty and “at no time” on their (Face­book) page has any neg­a­tiv­i­ty been post­ed. She said that be­fore us­ing T&TEC poles to hang over­head ban­ners, per­mis­sion must be grant­ed, which they got from T&TEC yes­ter­day.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to T&TEC’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­part­ment twice on Ben­jamin’s claims but got no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front can­di­date Em­manuel Phillip is al­so con­test­ing the Moru­ga/Table­land seat.