The prospective candidate for the People's National Movement Winston "Gypsy" Peters may not have been officially announced as the party's choice for the Moruga/Tableland constituency, but he visited the area on Saturday to meet several PNM activists and campaign for the party's re-election.
There had been a few protests following the announcement that Peters, a former United National Congress MP, was the sole candidate selected by the Moruga/Tableland committee to be screened for the upcoming general election.
Following that revelation many staged protests in the area stating "No Lovell, no vote," clamouring for the incumbent MP, Dr Lovell Francis to be given another chance.
Peters took part in a meet and greet in the Samuel Cooper Village, where he was joined by chairman of the constituency, David Trim. He addressed the concerns raised by the protesting group.
"People have their people, who actually they were attached to all the time, and then you are becoming detached from them. It must be a little emotional situation. But I will deal with that emotional situation in terms of bringing us together," said Peters.
"The common thread here is that we are one party, it's not that I'm coming from a next party and asking you to do something. We are one party with one common goal, I don't think any of us want to do anything that would keep us out of government. I think that all of us want to do something that would keep us in government."
Peters, the current National Carnival Commission chairman, had been screened on Thursday. However, despite reports that the screening went well, he was not officially announced as the party's candidate.
The former Calypso Monarch and multiple national Extempo champion said that he will not make a statement to media concerning his candidacy until an official announcement is made by the PNM.
Peters had formerly been a member of the UNC, serving as Ortoire/Mayaro MP from 2000 to 2002 and Mayaro MP from 2007 to 2015 as a member of that party. He quit the UNC in August 2015 days before the September 7 general election, after he was not selected as a candidate by the UNC. He appeared at a PNM rally days later.