KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As he lift­ed Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's arms in cel­e­bra­tion, fi­nan­cial ad­vis­er Khem­raj Seecha­ran de­clared his vic­to­ry in the Debe South bye-elec­tions as the start of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) march to a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions win.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) con­firmed Seecha­ran's com­mand­ing vic­to­ry in Mon­day's polls, amass­ing 1650 votes ahead of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty can­di­date Loren­zo Sama­roo with 175 and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­tender Judy Sookdeo with 25. In his vic­to­ry speech in Debe on Mon­day night, Seecha­ran thanked the peo­ple of Debe-South for their con­fi­dence in him, say­ing it was a day he would nev­er for­get. With his win, Seecha­ran be­lieves it gives the UNC mo­men­tum in its quest to get back in­to gov­ern­ment.

"When the cam­paign start­ed and my nom­i­na­tion was an­nounced, I told you all that we are cre­at­ing an avalanche in Debe-South. To­day that avalanche has start­ed to spread, and we are go­ing through­out from Debe South in­to the en­tire Trinidad & To­ba­go. And rest as­sured that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is go­ing to get back in gov­ern­ment un­der the lead­er­ship of the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar,” Seecha­ran said.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter, Seecha­ran said he was aware of the Pe­nal-Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion's (PDRC) is­sue with fund­ing. Dur­ing his cam­paign, he com­mit­ted to ad­dress­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues such as roads and drainage. While he un­der­stands that it is dif­fi­cult to get things done as the UNC is Op­po­si­tion, he be­lieves that if work got done dur­ing the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship tenure be­tween 2010 2015, it can hap­pen again.

"I am not go­ing to be able to fix every­thing overnight, but if we start and we start to lob­by for the things that we can get done, then we move from where we are and from com­plain­ing and just ac­cept­ing things to a place where we can be and do bet­ter."

He thanked his op­po­nents for the fight and asked them to work with him to re­build Debe South. Even as the UNC won, he said the re­al vic­to­ry was for the res­i­dents. Seecha­ran said there were a lot of highs and lows on elec­tion day, but it end­ed in joy as he se­cured vic­to­ry for the UNC. 

He said his work with com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­grammes over the years in­flu­enced his de­ci­sion to en­gage in elec­toral pol­i­tics. Dur­ing that time, he found­ed the Pe­nal Debe Foun­da­tion: a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion aimed at help­ing vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies and ad­dress­ing so­cial is­sues.

He be­lieves what made him stand out among his com­peti­tors was his back­ground. Born in Boodoo Trace, Seecha­ran at­tend­ed the Pe­nal Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, then Iere High School in Siparia. He has a Bach­e­lor De­gree in Busi­ness Man­age­ment and says he un­der­stands the is­sues in the com­mu­ni­ty and has a pas­sion to do his best.

The UNC tra­di­tion­al­ly held all the elec­toral dis­tricts in the Pe­nal/Debe re­gion, but Sama­roo and Sookdeo were con­fi­dent of an up­set be­cause there were al­so from the com­mu­ni­ty.

The Debe South seat at the PDRC be­came va­cant on Feb­ru­ary 14, 2021, when coun­cil­lor Pu­rushot­tam Singh died. Months lat­er, the com­mu­ni­ty had no rep­re­sen­ta­tive, lead­ing to protest. Seecha­ran said the PNM did not want to have the elec­tion, and it was on­ly when the UNC threat­ened le­gal ac­tion in Jan­u­ary that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley called the elec­tion.

Fol­low­ing the trend of bye-elec­tions, the EBC re­port­ed a vot­er turnout of 26 per cent of the 7124 vot­ers ex­er­cis­ing their rights. As for those who did not vote for Seecha­ran, he says they do not need to wor­ry.

"For those who did not vote for me, have no fear. As I told you all from day one, I am from Debe South. I am one of you and have no fear, every­thing that I do from here on is for all of us."

Whether a few months in of­fice or a year, Seecha­ran wants to make an im­pact so that when Row­ley calls the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion, he has the mo­men­tum from his suc­cess­ful cam­paign.

“I think I am prob­a­bly on a bet­ter foot­ing than the oth­er coun­cil­lors,” he said jok­ing­ly.