RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­spite the crossover of three UNC coun­cil­lors and its Chief Econ­o­mist Sen­a­tor Tarhaqa Obi­ka, who all switched sides to the PNM, the UNC says it re­mains con­fi­dent that it will win the elec­tions be­cause of the PNM's fail­ure in ad­dress­ing crime.

At Skin­ner Park in San Fer­nan­do, can­di­dates from both sides of the po­lit­i­cal fence met and shook hands as they filed nom­i­na­tions for the Au­gust 14th Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

Among those fil­ing for the PNM were Naigum Joseph, Spring­vale Par­adise; Ryaad Ho­sein, Les Ef­forts East/ Cipero and

Saied Mo­hammed, Les Ef­forts West/ La Ro­maine.

The UNC's can­di­dates for these ar­eas are Tau­ren Meade, Ken­rick Ser­rette, and Rishi Bal­ram­s­ingh.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, UNC's elec­tions of­fi­cer, Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­miedi­al said de­spite the crossover, the UNC re­mains fo­cused on is­sues.

She said the spi­ral­ing crime sit­u­a­tion, the un­em­ploy­ment cri­sis, and ris­ing pover­ty lev­els will be the rea­sons the UNC wins the elec­tions.

Meade's cam­paign as­sis­tant Vil­liana Ra­moutars­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that she hoped the elec­tions will be fair. She al­so said crime is a ma­jor prob­lem in her area.

But, the PNM's Naigum Joseph said the gov­ern­ment had a plan to deal with crime and had passed leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress the is­sue. A Chi­nese drag­on dancer ac­com­pa­nied Joseph as he filed for nom­i­na­tion.

Asked about its sig­nif­i­cance, Joseph said he had brought a taste of his Chi­nese her­itage on nom­i­na­tion day. Say­ing his fam­i­ly was well-known in the city, Joseph said they con­tributed to its de­vel­op­ment for decades.

But Joseph's UNC op­po­nent Meade, who owns Chi­no's Bar­ber­shop on Lord Street said Joseph was not con­nect­ed to the grass­roots con­stituents.

Meade said he is con­fi­dent of a win say­ing he has heard the cries of his peo­ple and de­cid­ed to join pol­i­tics. He agreed that crime was a num­ber one is­sue not­ing that peo­ple have been suf­fer­ing for too long un­der the PNM.

Mean­while, Bal­ram­s­ingh who serves as the in­cum­bent, al­so said he planned to win and will con­tin­ue help­ing peo­ple in the Les Ef­forts West / La Ro­maine dis­trict. Bal­ram­s­ingh said he has done his best to bridge the gap be­tween the rich and poor and will work again to help his con­stituents when he wins the seat.

The UNC lost three coun­cil­lors- Mar­cus Gird­harie, Samuel Sankar, and Shel­don Gar­cia in the lead-up to the elec­tions, all of whom crossed the floor to join the PNM. Sankar joined the PNM last No­vem­ber, Gird­harie switched sides last June and Gar­cia left the par­ty af­ter the 2021 by­elec­tion at the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion. In 2019, UNC's Kublal Pal­too al­so crossed the floor.

Guardian Me­dia will up­date this sto­ry as more in­for­ma­tion comes to hand.