Sup­port­ers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) staged a protest march in Ari­ma yes­ter­day call­ing on the elec­torate to vote out the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the next gen­er­al elec­tion. The protest was held in con­junc­tion with the One Cor­ri­dor Move­ment un­der the theme Let’s Res­cue Ari­ma.

UNC’s North­east re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tor Bri­an Baig said the protest was in­tend­ed to high­light nu­mer­ous prob­lems in the con­stituen­cy.

“The peo­ple of Ari­ma have said in one voice that Row­ley must go,” he said.

Baig, who ap­pealed to vot­ers to sup­port Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar, ac­cused the PNM of tak­ing cred­it for projects which had start­ed un­der the UNC in­clud­ing the new Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal and the re­fur­bished Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion.

Dressed in yel­low UNC jer­seys, the group walked in heavy rain from Hearde Park on the Blan­chisseuse Old Road, at­tract­ing the at­ten­tion of mo­torists and pedes­tri­ans who slowed to lis­ten to the loud-speak­ers blar­ing mu­sic and calls for “Row­ley must go now.”

In a brief ad­dress out­side the Ari­ma Mar­ket at around 11 am, at­tor­ney and res­i­dent Nigel Tran­coso said: “I know the strug­gles, the dif­fi­cul­ties, the hard­ships that we face in Ari­ma.”

He urged Ari­ma res­i­dents to care­ful­ly ex­am­ine what had changed in the last four years.

“There are many busi­ness­es that have closed and are clos­ing down,” he said

“Do you know what busi­ness­es have in­creased? The fu­ner­al homes, be­cause our young black peo­ple are dy­ing.

“The time is now be­cause we have to pre­pare for our suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions and Ari­ma needs that change now.”

For­mer Ari­ma may­or Kei­th De­nal­li said the bor­ough had en­joyed its best years un­der the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR). “It is time to bring back the great times to Ari­ma. It is time to bring back the good times to Pin­to and San­ta Rosa. We want every­body to sup­port the UNC from here on to achieve this,” he urged.

The group lat­er walked to the site of the new Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal which is still un­der con­struc­tion and took pic­tures in front of the locked gate of the fa­cil­i­ty they claimed start­ed un­der the UNC.