Resh­ma Ra­goonath

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) min­is­ter and Oropouche MP Trevor Su­dama re­ceived a stand­ing ova­tion last night as he made a sur­prise ap­pear­ance on a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) plat­form in San Fer­nan­do.While Su­dama said he is not a mem­ber of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, he launched a scathing at­tack on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) as he took cen­tre stage at Navet Road, San Fer­nan­do, where the PNM kicked off its lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions cam­paign for the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion.

"We are fac­ing a se­ri­ous cri­sis in our so­ci­ety, he said.He said un­der the PP, delin­quen­cy and cor­rup­tion were on the rise and the econ­o­my was go­ing nowhere."There is a deep-seat­ed malaise," he said, adding that there is a di­min­ish­ing of in­tegri­ty."What we are fac­ing to­day are un­prece­dent­ed lev­els of cor­rup­tion," he said, elic­it­ing cheers from the au­di­ence, some of whom had laughed when Su­dama first took the stage."De­cep­tion and sub­terfuge," he said, had re­placed hon­esty and in­tegri­ty.

"For the fu­ture of our coun­try it is im­per­a­tive that we em­bark on a new di­rec­tion in T&T," he said.While he stopped short of en­dors­ing the PNM, Su­dama said if the PNM "is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a new per­spec­tive for the vi­sion of T&T, a new era of hope, then I will say that it has my best wish­es."Row­ley, ad­dress­ing the po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at which the PNM's nine can­di­dates for the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion were pre­sent­ed, de­scribed Su­dama's ap­pear­ance on the par­ty's plat­form as a "sig­nif­i­cant thing."

He said Su­dama's mes­sage is a call for cit­i­zens to stand up and be count­ed.He com­mend­ed Su­dama for be­ing "strong enough and man enough" to open­ly speak about the state of af­fairs in T&T.Row­ley de­clared: "The doors are wide open at the PNM. We do not have all the an­swers. All are wel­come."

The Op­po­si­tion Leader, to­geth­er with oth­er PNM par­ty ex­ec­u­tives, host­ed a two-fold event as they for­mal­ly opened the par­ty's new re­gion­al of­fice at Navet Road, San Fer­nan­do, and pre­sent­ed the par­ty's eight can­di­dates for the SFCC.Lead­ing the slate of can­di­dates was for­mer coun­cilor Sha­ka Joseph, who will be con­test­ing the Mon Re­pos/Navet elec­toral dis­trict, which he held in the last coun­cil.