Oilfield Workers Trade Union president general Ancel Roget says the people of Point Fortin feel abandoned and fed up of the empty promises of the People's National Movement (PNM) and the United National Congress (UNC). As for a recent poll which gave Dr Keith Rowley a 50 per cent approval rating, Roget said he does not attach any weight or credibility to such polls.
He addressed the media on Friday before embarking on the second leg of the Joint Trade Union Movement's walkabout in support of the Movement for Justice candidates in the Local Government elections. The candidates were Michael "Buzz" Mills and Garrett Thompson for Newland, Mahaica and Hollywood respectively.
Lamenting that the country is in real problems, Roget said, "And, so once we continue along the direction PNM till I dead or UNC till I dead or tell ourselves there is no other option, we all will die and that is a fact."
Like in other communities they have traversed, Roget said residents of Point Fortin have expressed a great sense of hopelessness and neglect. "We want to represent a sense of hope, a sense of new direction. There is quite a lot of benefit to come from an abandonment of that old political order of UNC and PNM and point to something else that will give you the type of power to see your lives being improved in the way that provides for your future." Roget said the time has come to put an end to race-based voting. "The vast amount of Point Fortin people were telling us we fed up of this thing about PNM till I dead, the UNC till I dead and we fed up of the PNM here in the Point Fortin because it makes absolutely no sense."
As for the recent poll, he said if a poll rates him as doing a good job he will take no notice of it as those polls are manipulated to bring about a certain result. "Who pays the piper calls the tune and, therefore, I pay no respect, no regard, or no attention to those polls." He said it was more than passing strange that in the midst of mayhem, murders, home invasions, the shutting down of a major state enterprise and unemployment, the Prime Minister and his government got a pass mark. "It is like those who use the data on Facebook and social media to manipulate, it is no different from that." Other union members participating in the walkabout were the T&T Postal Workers Union, Industrial General and Sanitation Workers Trade Union, Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union, and the Maxi Taxi Association.