Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress front­lin­er Jack Warn­er says what was most plea­sur­able in his Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions walk­a­bouts was how peo­ple showed him love and en­cour­aged him to fight on with his court bat­tle - but he says the writ­ing is on the wall for the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment in the two To­ba­go seats and San­gre Grande.

Cur­rent­ly, how­ev­er, Warn­er's un­de­cid­ed on what post/po­si­tion he'll seek or hold in the UNC go­ing for­ward.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on the UNC's LGE cam­paign and his fu­ture, Warn­er said, "For me, what was most plea­sur­able (in cam­paign­ing) was the way peo­ple greet­ed me, not just on UNC's plat­form but as I walked through com­mu­ni­ties in San­gre Grande, Ari­ma, Va­len­cia, San Fer­nan­do; cit­i­zens opened their arms to em­brace me, to show love and to en­cour­age me to fight the fight and hold on be­cause the bat­tle in the courts is in the Lord's hands."

Warn­er said the elec­tion for him was to retest the wa­ters and un­der­stand where the elec­torate is cur­rent­ly lo­cat­ed.

"And the elec­torate and the UNC un­der Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar gave me hope all is not lost and most cer­tain­ly, this isn't PNM coun­try," he said.

"Though the re­sults re­flect­ed a tie, it in­di­cat­ed the ex­tent to which a large cross sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion re­ject­ed the PNM's mes­sage; re­fused to vote to val­i­date its lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form and many among their own de­clined to vote PNM."

He said the UNC's team wasn't sur­prised at the 30 per cent vot­er turnout, "Be­cause as we walked, those who didn't sup­port us and claimed they couldn't give us their vote, were adamant they aren't dirty­ing their fin­ger for this Row­ley PNM".

Not­ing the UNC won more dis­tricts than in the 2019 LGE, Warn­er added, "I'm con­vinced the writ­ing for the PNM and Kei­th Row­ley is on the wall. San­gre Grande has to be giv­ing the PNM night­mares.

"To­ba­go al­ready has shown the PNM the ex­tent to which that par­ty re­mains re­ject­ed... that means that two seats, long be­fore the elec­tion, will not go PNM's way and with San­gre Grande now firm­ly in the Op­po­si­tion's hands, it means there's trou­ble in the PNM camp."

He added, "This elec­tion shows that as long as Kei­th Row­ley re­mains as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader, na­tion­al sup­port for them will con­tin­ue de­clin­ing.

"In 2015, the PNM won 23 seats; the UNC won 17. In 2015, 378,729 peo­ple vot­ed PNM; in 2020, they re­ceived 322,250 votes - 56,479 less than they got in 2015.

"In 2015, 290,074 vot­ed for the UNC; in 2020, they re­ceived 309,188 votes - 19,114 more than 2015."

He added, "De­spite the 2019 LGE tie, PNM got 161,962 votes but the UNC won the pop­u­lar vote then with 202,584 votes - 48,622 more than PNM. On Mon­day, the UNC won the pop­u­lar vote again with 173,961 votes - 43,093 more than PNM."

Say­ing the PNM's 130,868 votes on Mon­day was 31,094 less than its 2019 LGE to­tal, Warn­er point­ed out, "Every time Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar goes to the polls against Kei­th Row­ley she per­forms bet­ter and he los­es votes. Gen­er­al Elec­tion 2025 will be the moth­er of all elec­tions. The trends are clear, PNM will be top­pled."