Fran­cis Joseph

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar left her sup­port­ers dis­ap­point­ed in Diego Mar­tin last night.

She was ex­pect­ed to ad­dress sup­port­ers of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) at a pub­lic meet­ing ad­join­ing the Pat­na Po­lice Post at Diego Mar­tin. But she did not show, opt­ing in­stead to ad­dress a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) pub­lic meet­ing at Palmiste, South Trinidad. The T&T Guardian was told that she ran late with her ap­point­ments, so she de­cid­ed at the last minute to aban­don the trip to north Trinidad.

But UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er ad­dressed the sup­port­ers at Palmiste and then made a stop at the Diego Mar­tin meet­ing. A mixed crowd at­tend­ed the meet­ing and re­mained vo­cal all night. They came out in sup­port of Rocky Gar­cia, the Diego Mar­tin West can­di­date who is chal­leng­ing the in­cum­bent, Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Gar­cia tore in­to Row­ley, say­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had si­lenced him in the run-up to the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. "Imag­ine my op­po­nent is talk­ing about in­tegri­ty and he come and ask you to vote for the PNM, the same par­ty that you have a prob­lem with," he said.

"I thought my op­po­nent was a Rotweiller, but he has been si­lenced. Once thing I agree with Row­ley is that the coun­try needs men of strength, and that is what I am." Garvin Nicholas, the UNC can­di­date for Diego Mar­tin North/East, said the on­ly thing Row­ley was in­ter­est­ed in was to throw his cap­tain over­board, court mar­tial him and take over the PNM. Nicholas, an at­tor­ney, said soon af­ter the UNC an­nounced that it would es­tab­lish a $100 mil­lion fund for sick chil­dren, the PNM came up with a $250 mil­lion fund for sick peo­ple. He al­so point­ed out that the PNM wants to throw $300 mil­lion in­to Laven­tille. He re­mind­ed the sup­port­ers that Man­ning built his own house for $300 mil­lion. Nicholas said the PNM jumped out and said they were pro-life. "But for the past eight years, 3,000 lives were snuffed out...They deemed those lives to be no more than col­lat­er­al dam­age," he said.

He said the PNM had aban­doned life by not giv­ing funds to sick chil­dren who had life threat­en­ing med­ical prob­lems. He said they had to raise mon­ey through bar­be­cues. As far as Nicholas was con­cerned, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was pro life, but if the law has to change, then the peo­ple of T&T will de­cide that. Nicholas point­ed out that prop­er­ty tax, pro­posed by the Gov­ern­ment, will go, but URP and Cepep would be en­hanced. He al­so stat­ed that GATE would al­so be en­hanced. He promised to build a mar­ket in Mar­aval for farm­ers so they can sell their pro­duce. That is his first promise when he be­comes the MP for Diego Mar­tin North/East.