To all those who don't wish to vote red or yel­low - Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment or Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress - the Port-of-Spain Peo­ple's Move­ment (PPM) says come to the cen­tre.

That was the call from PPM chair­man Louis Lee Sing the launch of the par­ty's can­di­dates for Port-of-Spain for the De­cem­ber 2 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

The can­di­dates and the par­ty were si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly in­tro­duced to a gath­er­ing of peo­ple at an out­door venue at 47 Tragerete Road, Port-of-Spain.

The par­ty pre­sent­ed nine can­di­dates for the 12 Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion seats, in­clud­ing three for­mer PoS coun­cil­lors.

The can­di­dates are Omawale Brath­waite (St Ann's Riv­er Cen­tral), Ash­tine Thoma­son (St Ann's Riv­er South), Michelle Primus (East Dry Riv­er), Da­da Aswad Gabriel (South­ern PoS), Cleve­land Gar­cia (Wood­brook), Jaleesa Tou­s­saint (Bel­mont East), Yaseer Ho­sein (St James West), Shel­don Ali (St James East) and Aaron Dos San­tos (North­ern PoS).

Lee Sing said they con­tin­u­ing to screen for can­di­dates for the three oth­er seats.

On whether he felt the par­ty would at­tract PNM votes, Lee Sing said, "We feel we are com­pe­tent fish­er­men and we'll at­tract peo­ple who want change. Peo­ple have told us they're not vot­ing red or yel­low and tonight we have giv­en them, all who don't want to go left or right, come to the cen­tre."

Chairman of the Port of Spain People's Movement (PPM) Louis Lee Sing together with Harry Ragoonanan former People National Movement long standing member, left, and financier and Selby Wilson at the launch for candidates for the PPM local Government Elections on Tragarete Road, Port-of-Spain, last night.

ANISTO ALVES

Lee Sing de­tailed what he saw as a de­cay­ing city and said his grand­daugh­ter had point­ed out to him that the most com­mon­ly known things in the city are now "for rent" and "for sale" signs. Lament­ing the num­bers of peo­ple who had be­come un­em­ployed from the clo­sure of busi­ness­es, Lee Sing said PPM will not tell peo­ple what they wish to hear be­cause he knows the youths es­pe­cial­ly are not go­ing for emp­ty promis­es.

He said the par­ty would al­so not be shack­led by any po­lit­i­cal boss and will not have a po­lit­i­cal leader but a three-mem­ber team, in­clud­ing him­self as chair­man.

Lee Sing al­so slammed the PNM Gov­ern­ment's Bud­get, say­ing it lacked any­thing to show re­al growth and it wouldn't give peo­ple the as­sur­ance of mean­ing­ful and sus­tain­able so­lu­tions, adding it was just mon­ey com­ing in and mon­ey be­ing spent with­out in­no­va­tion or idea of where T&T will be in five years' time.

Among the gath­er­ing was for­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) min­is­ter Sel­by Wil­son, who said Lee Sing's ad­dress was ex­cel­lent and that his vi­sion could ma­te­ri­alise with hard work. Wil­son said he wasn't aligned or sup­port­ing any par­tic­u­lar par­ty cur­rent­ly but said he felt T&T's pol­i­tics was at its low­est point ever. Al­so present was for­mer PN­Mite Har­ry Ra­goo­nanan, who said he is sup­port­ing Lee Sing's par­ty.

"He is my friend and I'm sup­port­ing him. He may not win but he'll send a strong mes­sage to the PNM that all's not well in T&T," said Ra­goo­nanan, who has tak­en le­gal ac­tion against the PNM for ex­pelling him last year.

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Jack Warn­er al­so showed up halfway in­to the launch and took some pic­tures for his news­pa­per.

Lee Sing said he wasn't sur­prised that Warn­er came, not­ing he had said the meet­ing was a pub­lic one open to any­body to come to see the PPM.