Richard Lord

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment is ral­ly­ing around Hilton Sandy, its can­di­date for the elec­toral dis­trict of Belle Gar­den/Rox­bor­ough/De­laford in the Jan­u­ary 21 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion. The par­ty main­tained this po­si­tion in spite of con­tin­u­ing calls for his re­moval in the wake of what has been de­scribed as a racist com­ment by some, made at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing last week.

Yes­ter­day, PNM chair­man Franklin Khan said the par­ty had al­ready dealt with the mat­ter ad­e­quate­ly, prompt­ing Sandy's pub­lic apol­o­gy, and his with­draw­al from the cam­paign, as sug­gest­ed in some quar­ters, was now not an op­tion. "The PNM is sad­dened by the state­ment. But it forms no part of the PNM's pol­i­cy and in no way re­flects the PNM's po­si­tion," Khan said.

"But Dr Row­ley ad­dressed the mat­ter by stat­ing that he spoke to Sandy as ear­ly as pos­si­ble about it, caus­ing his sub­se­quent apol­o­gy." Sandy, who is the THA's Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary, told sup­port­ers at a pub­lic meet­ing last Fri­day that they should en­sure the PNM re­tains con­trol of the as­sem­bly, as there was a Cal­cut­ta ship wait­ing to come in and take over the is­land if the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple were to gain hold of the THA.

Row­ley and Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don both con­demned the com­ment, say­ing it did not rep­re­sent the po­si­tion of the 56-year-old par­ty. Sandy sub­se­quent­ly apol­o­gised, say­ing it was not in­tend­ed to hurt any­one but was just po­lit­i­cal pi­cong. He added that he had many friends who were East In­di­ans.

The com­ment has, how­ev­er, been viewed as racist by many peo­ple, among them TOP leader Ash­worth Jack, for­mer head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas, him­self a To­bag­on­ian, and oth­er sec­tors. Khan added, "If he were to with­draw it would al­so be im­pos­si­ble to get a re­place­ment can­di­date at this stage."

He not­ed that Sandy's with­draw­al would ef­fec­tive­ly mean for­feit­ing the seat, which "the PNM is not about to do." Khan was sup­port­ed by the par­ty's PRO, Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, who said calls for Sandy's with­draw­al as a can­di­date were friv­o­lous. He said Sandy's state­ment was un­for­tu­nate but not­ed he is­sued an al­most im­me­di­ate un­re­served apol­o­gy.

Al-Rawi said the res­ig­na­tion call "was a disin­gen­u­ous po­si­tion be­ing tak­en by the UNC-led Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, which in­cludes the TOP." He said Sandy's com­ment was sim­i­lar to a state­ment made by Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who said women who were en­gaged in the High­way Re-route Move­ment's protest at the Par­vati Girls' Hin­du Col­lege on In­di­an Ar­rival Day were sit­ting on the pave­ment like a bag of aloo.

EBC ex­plains

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion yes­ter­day con­firmed that any can­di­date who with­draws from the THA race at this stage can­not be re­placed by their par­ty. Nom­i­na­tion Day was De­cem­ber 31. The elec­tion rules that form part of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act pre­scribe:

7. (1) On the day and at the place fixed for the nom­i­na­tion of can­di­dates, the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer shall at­tend be­tween the hours of nine o'clock in the morn­ing and 12 noon and be­tween the hours of one and three o'clock in the af­ter­noon for the pur­pose of re­ceiv­ing the nom­i­na­tion of any du­ly qual­i­fied can­di­date. The re­turn­ing of­fi­cer, un­der rule 12 (1), must pub­licly post the nom­i­na­tion and the can­di­date's de­c­la­ra­tion of his el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for elec­tion for sev­en days af­ter Nom­i­na­tion Day.