Yvonne Ba­boolal

Ma­jor­i­ty of the UNC sup­port­ers wait­ing to pro­ceed on a day­time walk­a­bout with Op­po­si­tion can­di­date, Clifton De­Coteau last Mon­day through In­di­an Walk, Moru­ga were Afro-Trinida­di­ans. In­di­an Walk is a strong PNM con­stituen­cy. Among the lot was Elvin Dy­er, the man who chas­tised PNM MP Pe­ter Tay­lor for ab­sen­teeism from the area.

Tay­lor re­signed short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent and po­lit­i­cal new­com­er, Au­gus­tus "Popo" Thomas, has re­placed him as the new can­di­date for the Princes Town South/Table­land seat. Dy­er, wear­ing a Mus­lim taj, rode the en­ter­tain­ment truck urg­ing con­stituents to sup­port the UNC. A mem­ber of the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen, Dy­er be­longs to a new Ja­maat mosque at Fort George Road in Moru­ga. Crazy's song, Patrick Man­ning Have To Go, and oth­er an­ti-PNM songs, blast­ed from the truck as the live­ly group, dressed in or­ange UNC jer­seys, chipped down the In­di­an Walk road led by De­Coteau. Ve­hi­cles with stick­ers of Per­cy Vil­lafana's crossed arm "Do So" sign fol­lowed.

PN­Mites who switched to the UNC

Many of the UNC sup­port­ers, like Dy­er, had been for­mer PNM loy­al­ists. "I was Tay­lor right-hand man," Dy­er of Samuel Coop­er Trace says. "I born and grow in PNM." Dy­er's moth­er, Re­bec­ca Dy­er, is a PNM ac­tivist in the area and her 11 chil­dren all sup­port­ed the PNM up to the last gen­er­al elec­tion, she says. "Me and two sis­ters jump out," Dy­er said.

Asked if he was promised any­thing for sup­port­ing the UNC, he replied, "No, I just vot­ing for prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion. I sup­port­ing the UNC for per­son­al rea­sons and for the com­mu­ni­ty. "My moth­er get noth­ing more than ten days from the PNM. I don't want to reach she age and end up with the same thing. "When De­Coteau come along, he as­sist we with a play­ground and when I see the grounds and the help, I say that's the per­son."

Dy­er re­called the day he booed Tay­lor out of Moru­ga. "We had a live ra­dio pro­gramme go­ing on in Fifth Com­pa­ny and Tay­lor was 'farse' to come there. "I tell him we don't need him any­more." Rheal Thomas, pres­i­dent of the Mandin­go Road Em­pow­er­ment Group and man­ag­er of the area's foot­ball club, vot­ed for the PNM up to the last gen­er­al elec­tion. He has now switched to the UNC. Thomas' grouse is that the PNM nev­er helped with a much-need­ed recre­ation ground. "We sold things and raised mon­ey and De­Coteau helped us. "Plen­ty peo­ple sup­port­ing De­Coteau. They don't like the UNC. They on­ly like Kam­la and De Coteau.

"Plus, it have a whole crew down here who not vot­ing. You can't treat us like rub­bish all the time and around elec­tion you come."

Patrick Moore, an el­der with the In­di­an Walk Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tists and a com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist, is hap­py with De­Coteau's in­volve­ment in the com­mu­ni­ty. Point­ing to the spank­ing new In­di­an Walk road that was paved on­ly the day be­fore by the Gov­ern­ment, Moore, a for­mer PN­Mite, said, "I am vot­ing for rep­re­sen­ta­tion, not for race, but for in­tegri­ty."

ABOVE: Au­gus­tus Thomas lead­ing a PNM walk­a­bout along Fort George Road, Moru­ga last Mon­day.

Loy­al PN­Mites

A short dis­tance away, on Fort George Road, a small band of PNM sup­port­ers in red jer­seys fol­lowed new can­di­date,Thomas, on a low-key walk­a­bout in the area. Pro PNM songs played soft­ly from a car while the cam­paign­ers walked the streets qui­et­ly. Among the group was Dy­er's moth­er, Re­bec­ca, a for­mer vil­lage coun­cil head. "He must be get­ting pay for that," she said, re­fer­ring to her son who switched to the UNC. Up to the last elec­tion, all my 11 chil­dren vot­ed for the PNM. "I ask him 'boy what you get­ting, what they promise you for you to change in this dras­tic way'. "I get­ting none and I re­main loy­al to the PNM. Since 1976, I was an ac­tivist." Re­bec­ca said she was loy­al to the PNM be­cause in 1962 Dr Er­ic Williams promised at­ten­dance at the Cowen Hamil­ton High School free.

Re­bec­ca said she was very bright but couldn't at­tend high school be­cause her fa­ther couldn't af­ford to send her. "The dear­est book on the list was a geom­e­try book for $4.95 and you had to pay $25 a term.

"That very year, Williams came in the vil­lage and said he will make Cowen a free school. "I was poor but all my chil­dren get free sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion at Cowen. This is PNM coun­try." Re­bec­ca, a mem­ber of the Mount Olive In­de­pen­dent Bap­tist Church, list­ed some of the good things the PNM has done for Fort George Road. "We have lights, wa­ter. And the road ain't bad." She said there were Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Projects and Cepep gangs in the area as well.

Princes Town­South/Table­land

1. Cre­at­ed in 2007

2. For­mer­ly part of Or­toire/Ma­yaro, Princes Town and Na­pari­ma

3. In­cor­po­rat­ing parts of Table­land, Moru­ga, Bar­rack­pore 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion re­sults

4. PNM- Pe­ter Tay­lor-8,929

5. UN­CA- Clifton De­Coteau-7,908

6. COP- 1,437

7. Com­bined UNC/COP- 9,345

Thomas con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry

"What pre­vents De­Coteau from hav­ing a house in Port-of-Spain?" Thomas asked, some­what an­gri­ly, dur­ing a walk­a­bout in Fort George Road last Mon­day. This was the re­sponse of the PNM's Princes Town South/Table­land can­di­date when asked whether, in fact, he lives in Ari­ma. "I grew up in Ed­ward Trace, Bas­setere. My grand­moth­er's house is there." But does he live in Ari­ma? "For the past 15 years, I have been liv­ing in Ari­ma. But my fa­ther lives in La Lune. I am in Moru­ga every month." "I do walk­a­bouts in the con­stituen­cy every sin­gle day, from 9.30 am to 5pm, some­times un­til 8.30 pm. "I am get­ting a sense of what's hap­pen­ing and I feel con­fi­dent I will bring the seat home.

Thomas' pro­file

1. Born in Bas­seterre, Moru­ga, in 1962

2. At­tend­ed Ibis High School, San Fer­nan­do

3. Stud­ied pol­i­tics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and law in Bar­ba­dos

4. A prac­tis­ing at­tor­ney in Port-of-Spain

5. Worked 29 years in the pub­lic ser­vice in hu­man re­source and as chief per­son­nel of­fi­cer in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter

6. Lives in Ari­ma

De Coteau: Young peo­ple not on racial pol­i­tics

Clifton De Coteau, the UNC's can­di­date for the mar­gin­al seat of Princes Town South/Table­land, was cau­tious about the par­ty wrest­ing the seat from the PNM in the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. "When you play­ing mas, you feel your band is the best band. But this seat is a true mar­gin­al. It could swing ei­ther way." De­Coteau said feed­back from the ground about the po­lit­i­cal al­le­giances of the peo­ple was gen­er­al­ly the same as in 2007. But he not­ed al­so, "Some peo­ple who sup­port­ed the rul­ing par­ty the last time have de­fect­ed. "This con­stituen­cy com­pris­es a lot of young peo­ple and they are not stick­ing to the tra­di­tion­al racial pol­i­tics." De­Coteau said dis­en­chant­ment with the PNM has caused sup­port­ers to switch to the UNC.

De Coteau's pro­file

1. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for In­ver­ness/Princes Town

2. School Su­per­vi­sor

3. Prin­ci­pal- St Stephen's Col­lege, Princes Town

4. Vice Prin­ci­pal- Princes Town Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive

5. Teacher- Bar­rack­pore Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive, St Stephen's Col­lege

6. Served as chair­man of var­i­ous com­mit­tees in Princes Town

7. For­mer Best Vil­lage pro­duc­er for Princes Town/Moru­ga

8. For­mer sec­re­tary of the Moru­ga Fish­ing Co-op­er­a­tive

9. Served as di­rec­tor on the Na­tion­al Kick Box­ing Coun­cil of T&T

LIVE IN­TER­VIEW WITH KAM­LA Per­sad Bisses­sar! Sun­day, 16th @ 9pm... on

CNC3... Does she have what it takes to lead? Can she be the next PM?

This in­ter­view will be streamed LIVE on http://www.guardian.co.tt/2010elec­tion