PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can­di­date for the St Joseph Ahloy Hunt says he will be fo­cussing on crime dur­ing his cam­paign for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

He was speak­ing on a walk­a­bout of Bam­boo Set­tle­ment yes­ter­day.

His team was armed with masks and hand san­i­tiz­ers dur­ing their walk.

It proved a glimpse of what cam­paign­ing in the up­com­ing elec­tion sea­son may look like with the lin­ger­ing threat of COVID-19.

“We’re ad­her­ing to the health or­der,” he said.

“We will en­sure that we keep our so­cial dis­tanc­ing and of course in groups of no more than five, so we will have groups yes but no more than five and split up,” the for­mer Lieu­tenant Colonel Hunt added be­fore the walk­a­bout yes­ter­day.

While the el­e­ments of elec­tion walk­a­bouts were al­so present, in­clud­ing a car dri­ving by with a bull­horn an­nounc­ing Hunt’s pres­ence, the in­ter­ac­tions with mem­bers of the pub­lic saw the can­di­date stand­ing a sig­nif­i­cant dis­tance off the res­i­dents.

Groups of four fol­lowed Hunt as he ap­proached res­i­dents, while oth­er mem­bers of the walk­a­bout scout­ed oth­er homes.

“This is the first stage of link­ing with the peo­ple of this par­tic­u­lar area, this polling di­vi­sion. It is my first step in meet­ing and let­ting the peo­ple see who I am,” he said, while al­so giv­ing an ad­mit­tance that it was his first time in­ter­act­ing with peo­ple from the area.

“I have not heard from them be­fore. This is my first walk­a­bout. I have in­for­ma­tion that was pre­sent­ed to me. To­day is a con­fir­ma­tion of those is­sues,” Hunt said.

He was not the on­ly po­ten­tial name on the bal­lot list in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions to walk their prospec­tive con­stituen­cy over the week­end.

On Sat­ur­day, Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters held a meet and greet in Moru­ga, days af­ter be­ing screened for the Moru­ga/Table­land seat for the PNM.

Hunt may be new to the po­lit­i­cal scene, but his broth­er Gary Hunt served as Min­is­ter of Sport from 2007 to 2010 as a mem­ber of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

He said his choice to join the UNC was based on “bet­ter gov­er­nance, bet­ter qual­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and a whole host of oth­er things that I don’t want to get in­to be­cause I don’t want to com­pare the oth­er side.”

His fo­cus, he said, was the crime sit­u­a­tion.

“I think the an­swer is ob­vi­ous...based on the cur­rent crime sit­u­a­tion, again I don’t want to ex­plashiate in­to ar­eas. I want to hold back a bit for when the time is right but the cur­rent state of se­cu­ri­ty re­quires some­body with im­mense ex­pe­ri­ence, ca­pa­bil­i­ty, knowl­edge to re­al­ly take all the forces in Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty for­ward.”

The Hunts would not be the first set of broth­ers who have served op­pos­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties. Dan­ny and Robin Mon­tano sim­i­lar­ly had dif­fer­ing af­fil­i­a­tions dur­ing the late 1990s and ear­ly 2000s. Dan­ny Mon­tano served as a Min­is­ter and Sen­a­tor for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment while Robin Mon­tano served as a sen­a­tor un­der the UNC be­fore join­ing the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty.