Gail Alexan­der

"Yes, Ah Vex , But......." That was the mes­sage em­bla­zoned on the front of the red T-shirt worn by PN­Mite Michael Camp­bell in Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Shak­ing back his locks as he turned his back, the D'Abadie res­i­dent's jer­sey read: "....Ah Vot­ing PNM....." Camp­bell wasn't alone. The same ad­vi­so­ry adorned nu­mer­ous oth­er T-shirts, along with oth­er mes­sages boast­ing of PNM can­di­date sup­port. Yes­ter­day saw the rul­ing par­ty mov­ing to high­er of­fen­sive, ral­ly­ing troops who were marked­ly de­ter­mined to fight for po­lit­i­cal sur­vival in the face of the gath­er­ing storm of an Op­po­si­tion coali­tion, miles away on the Mid-Cen­tre Mall hori­zon. Ringed with bal­isi­er, Wood­ford had be­come Red Square, in stages through­out the af­ter­noon, peak­ing by 4.30 with over­flow, though the square had been far from full at noon. Folks in red had head­ed square-ward from 10.30 am, but con­tin­gents, ar­riv­ing late–and shun­ning the sun–did not im­me­di­ate­ly cov­er the area cor­ner-to-cor­ner.

By the time aer­i­al shots were tak­en around 5 pm, PNM's posse ap­peared to have heed­ed mo­bil­i­sa­tion in­struc­tions and du­ti­ful­ly pro­vid­ed the req­ui­site high-en­er­gy sea of red which sur­round­ed Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning as he took the mi­cro­phone. The mes­sages worn on the chests of PN­Mites were as loud as the po­lit­i­cal chest-thump­ing in the air, and mi­ni-sto­ries abound­ed. Wheel­chair-bound La Hor­quet­ta res­i­dent Karyl Alexan­der, 36, root­ed for MP Neil Parsan­lal: "I was a sup­port­er since I was small be­fore I lost my leg. PNM is all I know." Ex-min­is­ter Franklin Khan re­lat­ed his work as cam­paign man­ag­er for Moru­ga can­di­date Au­gus­tus Thomas: "We start­ed two weeks now, and it looks promis­ing, even though it's a mar­gin­al seat," Khan said, his trade­mark grin firm­ly back in place along with his red PNM T-shirt. Cou­va North can­di­date Nal Ram­s­ingh's busi­ness­man son strode con­fi­dent­ly through the crowd with a large bal­isi­er flag.

Hi­jab-clad Haala Nas­sir spoke proud­ly of her sup­port for Ch­agua­nas West can­di­date Ronald Heera. PNM cen­tral co­or­di­na­tor Eti­enne Mendez claimed to have re­ceived bet­ter than usu­al re­spons­es from sev­er­al Cen­tral ar­eas in re­cent days. "We haven't checked why yet," Mendez said. Diego Mar­tin West vice chair­man Sigler Jack ex­ult­ed in his con­tin­gent, whose jer­seys bore a par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ing procla­ma­tion: "In­tegri­ty, Loy­al­ty, Strength." Munch­ing on a sand­wich, a To­ba­go East sup­port­er re­lat­ed how she and about 200 oth­ers had just ar­rived on the noon fer­ry from Scar­bor­ough for the ral­ly.

Her T-shirt de­clared: "Ah not Sell­ing out." And Sug­ar Aloes was in full PNM cry amid the dust kicked up by the chip­ping, sway­ing crowd be­fore him. "Clear the way for the bal­isi­er, is PNM on elec­tion day," Aloes pre­dict­ed.

If Man­ning was the man of the peak hour for pro­ceed­ings, for­mer min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley, whom Man­ning fired in 2008, was the man of sev­er­al mo­ments pre­ced­ing that.

PN­Mites' warm wel­come for the fired min­is­ter was con­sis­tent from the stand­ing ova­tion Row­ley re­ceived at PNM's spe­cial con­ven­tion held ear­li­er in the day to rat­i­fy can­di­dates, to the mob­bing he re­ceived as he walked to the stage thor­ough the square. The area rang re­sound­ing­ly with cheers when Row­ley was in­tro­duced. Not miss­ing a beat, Row­ley went over and shook Man­ning's hand–as all can­di­dates had done–be­fore tak­ing his seat. The blip on the radar, how­ev­er, took place just af­ter that. Al­though list­ed to speak on pro­grammes giv­en to the me­dia, Row­ley did not do so, and Kennedy Swarats­ingh spoke at the time Row­ley was list­ed. The crowd how­ev­er, which had no pro­grammes, was com­plete­ly un­aware of the en­tire de­vel­op­ment. Diego Mar­tin West cam­paign man­ag­er Jacqui Lazarus sub­se­quent­ly said she be­lieved Row­ley had not been con­sult­ed about the sched­ul­ing, but re­ferred queries to the par­ty.

Man­ning could not hide his plea­sure with the day's turnout: "To­day, our cup run­neth over. In­deed, Wood­ford Square run­neth over.....Man­ning not go­ing any­where but back to Gov­ern­ment!" But his ad­dress still end­ed by urg­ing fol­low­ers to get down to work. And while the di­ver­si­ty Man­ning al­lud­ed to may have fig­ured some­what in his can­di­date team–25 males and 16 fe­males–it had a long way to go to­wards ful­fill­ment in yes­ter­day's gath­er­ing which was prime PNM sup­port. Nor could Man­ning's hoarse voice cov­er for the fact that some plans in his ad­dress had al­ready been re­peat­ed Bud­get con­tent in re­cent years. Strongest thrust came with his at­tack on the Op­po­si­tion's ca­pa­bil­i­ty and is­sues which have dogged the coali­tion. As PNM's Red Army be­gan leav­ing a dark­en­ing square, though, the sin­gle-mind­ed pur­pose be­hind the ground bat­tle was as clear as the mes­sage some PN­Mites have, ap­par­ent­ly, tak­en to heart: Who vex loss!

?PNM Can­di­dates/con­stituen­cies

?1. Princes Town - An­warie Ramkissoon

2. Moru­ga/Table­land - Au­gus­tus Thomas

3. San Fer­nan­do West - Ju­nia Re­grel­lo

4. Siparia - Vidya De­ok­iesingh

5. St Ann's East - Joanne Thomas

6. St Au­gus­tine - Dr Balchan­dra Shar­ma

7. St Joseph - Kennedy Swarats­ingh

8. Tabaquite - Farouk Mo­hammed

9. To­ba­go East - Gizel Thomas-Roberts

10. To­ba­go West - Ter­rence Williams

11. To­co/ San­gre Grande - Er­ic "Pink Pan­ther" Tay­lor

12. Tu­na­puna - Es­ther Le Gen­dre

13. San Fer­nan­do East - Patrick Man­ning

14. Ari­ma - Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing

15. Barataria/San Juan - Joseph Ross

16. Arou­ca/Mal­oney - Ali­cia Hospedales

17. Ca­roni Cen­tral - Sheila Madoo-Kur­ban

18. Ca­roni East - Harold Ra­moutar

19. Ch­agua­nas East - Mustapha Ab­dul-Hamid

20. Ch­agua­nas West- Ronald Heera

21. Cou­va North - Nal Ram­s­ingh

22. Cou­va South - An­tho­ny Khan

23. Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la - Dar­ryl Ma­habir

24. D'Abadie/O'Meara - Karen Nunez-Tesheira

25. Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral - Dr Amery Browne

26. Diego Mar­tin North east - Colm Im­bert

27. Diego Mar­tin West - Dr Kei­th Row­ley

28. Fyz­abad - Joel Primus

29. La Brea - Fitzger­ald Jef­frey

30. La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro - Nadra Nathai-Gyan

31. Laven­tille East/Mor­vant - Don­na Cox

32. Laven­tille West - NiLe­ung Hy­po­lite

33. Lopinot/Bon Air West - Neil Parsan­lal

34. Ma­yaro - Clif­ford Camp­bell

35. Na­pari­ma - Faiz Ramjohn

36. Oropouche East - Christin Ram­di­al

37. Oropouche West - Heather Sede­no

38. Pt Fortin - Paula Gopee-Scoon

39. Point-a-Pierre - Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo

40. Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West - Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh

41. Port-of-Spain South - Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald