Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

In­cum­bent pres­i­dent of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO), Ains­ley King, has re­turned to of­fice fol­low­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions, se­cur­ing 241 votes from mem­bers.

King de­feat­ed chal­lenger Kurt Allen and will con­tin­ue lead­ing the body re­spon­si­ble for rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

Allen said he ac­cept­ed the out­come of the elec­tion but main­tained that con­cerns sur­round­ing the elec­toral process re­mained un­re­solved.

Speak­ing af­ter the re­sults, Allen raised con­cerns about what he de­scribed as ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties dur­ing the elec­tion process.

When asked whether he would con­grat­u­late King on the vic­to­ry, Allen said he would not, ex­plain­ing that his con­cerns about TU­CO’s gov­er­nance is­sues re­mained.

“No, I’m not con­grat­u­lat­ing Mr King. I want to keep it hon­est. I can­not con­grat­u­late some­body for win­ning a process where the ques­tions I was ask­ing from be­fore haven’t been an­swered,” he said.

Allen point­ed to is­sues in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial trans­paren­cy, mem­ber wel­fare and op­por­tu­ni­ties for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans be­yond the Car­ni­val sea­son.

“No au­dit­ed ac­counts, no life in­sur­ance for the mem­bers, no op­por­tu­ni­ties to per­form out­side of Car­ni­val. Those things still stand,” he said.

He main­tained that his cam­paign was about more than win­ning an elec­tion, say­ing, “My cam­paign was not an elec­tion cam­paign. It was a ca­lyp­so cam­paign that took place dur­ing the elec­tion. It doesn’t mean that the cam­paign is go­ing to stop now. The elec­tion is over, but the cam­paign con­tin­ues.”

King’s re­turn to of­fice al­so comes against the back­ground of a pre­vi­ous le­gal chal­lenge sur­round­ing his as­sump­tion of the pres­i­den­cy fol­low­ing the death of for­mer TU­CO pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo “Broth­er Re­sis­tance” Masim­ba in 2021.

That chal­lenge ques­tioned whether the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed when King was el­e­vat­ed to the po­si­tion.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact King fol­low­ing the elec­tion re­sults to re­spond to Allen’s com­ments and the con­cerns raised about the elec­toral process, but calls to the TU­CO pres­i­dent went unan­swered.

TU­CO ELEC­TION RE­SULTS

• Pres­i­dent: Ains­ley King — 241 votes

• Vice Pres­i­dent: Steve “Ras Kom­man­da” Pas­call — 218 votes

• Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary: Shirlane Hen­drick­son — 235 votes

• As­sis­tant Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary: Mc Nor­ris “Broth­er Mark” Ed­wards — 206 votes

• Trea­sur­er: Melis­sa Williams Camp­bell — 212 votes

• As­sis­tant Trea­sur­er: Ker­ine Williams Fi­garo “Tiny” — 192 votes

• Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer: Crys­tal Charles — 134 votes

• As­sis­tant Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer: Sher­ma Orr Watkins — 204 votes

• Mar­ket­ing Of­fi­cer: Joseph Adams — 205 votes

• Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search Of­fi­cer: Joseph “Joey” Rivers — 184 votes

• Wel­fare Of­fi­cer: Karene As­che “Ca­lyp­so Princess” — 176 votes

• Trustee: Ken­son “Nin­ja” Nep­tune — 175 votes

• Trustee: Ken­neth “Punchin” Thomas — 157 votes