Jensen La Vende

Af­ter his home was shot at on Tues­day night com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist and can­di­ate in Mon­day's Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions, Julius Ed­wards, says he is done with im­prov­ing the Mal­abar area which he has been do­ing for close to three decades.

Ed­wards, who was a can­di­date un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ban­ner for Mal­abar South, did not win in Mon­day's polls. He said pri­or to that he was heav­i­ly in­volved with the Mal­abar Foot­ball Club in the se­mi-pro league and with Tues­day's in­ci­dent he was walk­ing away from com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivism be­cause it was "like cast­ing pearls be­fore swine."

He said he was of the be­lief that the shoot­er was a youth who was promised pay­ment for work­ing elec­tion day and was not paid. He added it was ex­plained to the youths that pay­ment would be made by week­end but it was ru­moured that he re­ceived pay­ment but was not dis­burs­ing it.

Ed­wards said he first thought of quit­ting ac­tivism in 2013 when his broth­er, Gar­net Ed­wards, was mur­dered at his home on March 8, again by those he were seek­ing to help. He said the killing of his broth­er was linked to the con­tro­ver­sial Life­S­port Pro­gramme that was dis­band­ed amidst al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion.

His broth­er, he said, was killed af­ter it was sug­gest­ed he had Life­S­port pay­ments at his home and thieves came look­ing for it.

"Since then I want­ed to quit but I be­lieved in the youths more but now I will watch from a side­line be­cause it don't make sense. These youths don't want any­thing good," Ed­wards said.

Asked what ad­vice he had for the per­son who would re­place him in guid­ing the youths away from crim­i­nal­i­ty, he said: "Trust in God. If a seed don't want to grow it will not. Do your best and let the jails and the pris­ons deal with those who don't want to do any good. I reach my point, I gave my heart out"

Ed­wards re­called that he had just re­turned home around 9.30 pm Tues­day and was seat­ed in his kitchen with a friend when he heard gun­shots. He said he shout­ed to his friend "Is bul­lets" and dove to the ground. Ed­wards said since the shoot­ing he was not con­tact­ed by the UNC leader and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar or any of the ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and that had him feel­ing de­ject­ed.

"I feel­ing like I get set up, like I not get­ting any sup­port," Ed­wards said adding had his work­ers been paid then the shoot­ing may not have hap­pened.

The Guardian con­tact­ed Prakash Bharath, Ed­wards' re­gion­al man­ag­er re­gard­ing claims he was be­ing owed pay­ment for his cam­paign work­ers. Bharath said can­di­dates were told they need­ed to raise their own funds and were giv­en a fixed amount.

He said what hap­pened to Ed­wards was a sad thing that was now in the hands of the po­lice but Ed­wards may have spent more mon­ey than he should have.