Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro can­di­date Phillip Watts has called on PNM sup­port­ers to close that “red door” and en­ter the “house of yel­low.”

His call came af­ter for­mer prime min­is­ter and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley called on “heavy-laden” UNC mem­bers to find “rest” with the PNM.

Speak­ing at the UNC’s cot­tage meet­ing in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Watts—the for­mer con­stituen­cy chair­man for the PNM—claimed there were some neg­a­tives to the par­ty he had been part of for the last 14 years.

Call­ing out PNM mem­bers, Watts added, “The PNM de­serves a rest, the PNM has lost its way … They are no longer fit to lead T&T any­more. Fool me once, fool me twice but nev­er three times! Vote them out!”

Watts slammed the PNM’s can­di­date for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro and in­cum­bent MP Fos­ter Cum­mings. He claimed farm­ers’ con­cerns were be­ing ig­nored.

“The ‘food bas­ket’ he talked of is ba­si­cal­ly emp­ty and the peo­ple are starv­ing, prae­di­al lar­ce­ny is still on the rise, and frus­trat­ed farm­ers can’t man­age their liveli­hood,” Watts said.

Watts said res­i­dents of the area de­served an MP who was there for them. He re­lat­ed is­sues from a lack of wa­ter to poor in­fra­struc­ture af­fect­ing res­i­dents.

“Peo­ple are cry­ing out for food ask­ing me for ham­pers,” he added. He claimed Cum­mings has not asked those whose homes were de­mol­ished in the area if they “want a bot­tle of wa­ter.”

Recit­ing the PNM’s slo­gan of “We love you so, we take good care of you,” Watts asked, “What does that mean? How to starve and trick a na­tion?!”

“This is the dis­turb­ing re­al­i­ty of this con­stituen­cy. Give your­selves a chance to breathe, I’m here to shine a light through that dark tun­nel!”

Watts claimed he heard that res­i­dents would be called by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion to be of­fered con­tracts to build roofs.

“That is to ma­m­aguy you, but that isn’t work­ing here tonight! So when they come knock­ing on your doors af­ter ten years say­ing things will be dif­fer­ent, tell them that isn’t work­ing here tonight!”

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who ac­cused for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of leav­ing T&T worse than how he met it, claimed five at­tor­neys who were ap­proached to be­come At­tor­ney Gen­er­al re­ject­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer.

Mooni­lal ques­tioned whether a probe in­volv­ing Camille Robin­son-Reg­is had been com­plet­ed fol­low­ing her ap­point­ment as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ashe he al­leged she “couldn’t ex­plain an FCB de­posit.”

Com­ment­ing on the Cab­i­net reshuf­fle, he crit­i­cised Stu­art Young’s de­ci­sion, stat­ing, “Stu­art Young’s first act was to ap­point her, that was a mis­take and he’ll make more mis­takes to come. They haven’t at­tract­ed one new face with pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­tise, yet they want to fool you!”