RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Tu­na­puna UNC con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Prakash Bharath has thrown his sup­port be­hind for­mer se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der, as the par­ty hi­er­ar­chy re­port­ed­ly de­lib­er­ates on his pos­si­ble can­di­da­cy for the seat in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Tu­na­puna is now held by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, with the out­go­ing Es­mond Forde re­s­e­lect­ed by that par­ty.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Bharath praised Alexan­der, say­ing he was the type of can­di­date the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress need­ed.

“Roger Alexan­der is an ex­cel­lent in­di­vid­ual, a top po­lice of­fi­cer known to fight crime, and he al­so had a suc­cess­ful tele­vi­sion show that brought so many so­lu­tions to crime for the pub­lic,” Bharath said.

He ad­mit­ted that he had not re­ceived of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion of Alexan­der’s se­lec­tion.

“I am see­ing the re­ports, and if that is true, I am in to­tal agree­ment with that.”

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Alexan­der, Bharath dis­missed any fears that his in­volve­ment would em­bar­rass the UNC.

“I don’t agree with that. He is a po­lice of­fi­cer who fought hard against crime, and some peo­ple may say he has been in con­tro­ver­sy, but that isn’t the case. He is just hard on crime.”

He added that with home in­va­sions, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, mur­ders, and rob­beries spi­ralling out of con­trol, the coun­try needs lead­ers like Alexan­der.

“Crime is a big prob­lem in T&T, and Roger has good ideas on how to deal with crime. The num­ber of mur­ders we are fac­ing means that we need peo­ple with that kind of think­ing and abil­i­ty to fight crime—some­one from the bel­ly of the po­lice force who can lead the po­lit­i­cal charge in this way.”

Mean­while, UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo did not con­firm Alexan­der’s can­di­da­cy but said the par­ty would in­clude in­di­vid­u­als with ex­per­tise in crime pre­ven­tion and crime fight­ing.

“Crime is a na­tion­al prob­lem and is di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to the col­lapsed econ­o­my, which has cost us 65,000 jobs in the last decade un­der the PNM, the poor in­vest­ment cli­mate, the State-sup­port­ed forex car­tel, and the clo­sure of thou­sands of busi­ness­es,” Tan­coo claimed.

He em­pha­sised that the UNC is build­ing a gov­er­nance team with ex­per­tise across var­i­ous sec­tors.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, our team will in­clude per­sons with ex­per­tise in crime pre­ven­tion and crime fight­ing. As you can see from our na­tion­al coali­tion of in­ter­ests, we wel­come all who are seek­ing to make this coun­try great again,” he said.

Mean­while, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin said he spoke to Alexan­der on Wednes­day be­fore he ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion let­ter.

“I don’t want to say any­thing more on this. I think at the right time he will make his dis­clo­sures. The TTPS would like to wish Mr Alexan­der all the best with his fu­ture en­deav­ours,” Ben­jamin added.

Alexan­der is well known for lead­ing op­er­a­tions against drug-traf­fick­ing gangs in ar­eas dubbed crime hotspots in Port-of-Spain, with his ef­forts be­ing fea­tured in a 2014 Vice News doc­u­men­tary ti­tled Cor­rup­tion, Co­caine, and Mur­der in Trinidad.

Alexan­der gained pub­lic recog­ni­tion on Ian Al­leyne’s Crime Watch show. He lat­er went on to host the Be­yond The Tape pro­gramme, which fo­cused on crime pre­ven­tion. He was lat­er re­moved from the show by now-sus­pend­ed Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Alexan­der mul­ti­ple times yes­ter­day but re­ceived no re­sponse.