Gail Alexan­der

Jack Warn­er's In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) is us­ing can­di­dates with crim­i­nal back­grounds–in­clud­ing a US de­por­tee–and this will set a dan­ger­ous prece­dent of crim­i­nals in­fil­trat­ing the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem if suc­cess­ful, UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal has al­leged.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship lo­cal gov­ern­ment cam­paign meet­ing on Mon­day night at Pep­per Sauce Junc­tion, En­deav­our, Ch­agua­nas, Mooni­lal claimed Ker­win Buc­chan cur­rent­ly be­fore the court on a gun and am­mu­ni­tion charge is a "dou­ble de­por­tee" hav­ing be­ing sent back from the Unit­ed States twice.Mooni­lal said the ILP was pre­sent­ing can­di­dates with crim­i­nal records.

"We are see­ing a very dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion de­vel­op­ing in our po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry, we're wit­ness­ing the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of our po­lit­i­cal struc­ture where crim­i­nals are on the verge of in­fil­trat­ing and in­fest­ing our rep­re­sen­ta­tive de­mo­c­ra­t­ic� in­sti­tu­tions."Mooni­lal said coun­tries all over the Third World col­lapse when crim­i­nals are elect­ed to pow­er."And the green par­ty led by Jack Warn­er is propos­ing crim­i­nal el­e­ments and I call on Jack Warn­er to with­draw those can­di­dates with crim­i­nal records."

Mooni­lal drew at­ten­tion to ILP's Mor­vant can­di­date pic­tured go­ing to court last week: "...With a tow­el over his head so when he put up a poster as a can­di­date, it's not 'vote ILP', it's 'Want­ed'. He can­not show his face."Mooni­lal said he had re­ceived wor­ry­ing in­for­ma­tion that ILP's Mor­vant can­di­date is al­so an al­leged dou­ble de­por­tee from the US.

Mooni­lal al­leged, "He was de­port­ed not once, but twice. The can­di­date by name of Ker­win Buc­chan, who is still an ILP can­di­date, was de­port­ed from the US in 2008 for fireams and am­mu­ni­tion. He il­le­gal­ly went back to the US and was de­port­ed again in 2011 for fireams and pos­ses­sion of nar­cotics and il­le­gal en­try and il­le­gal stay in the US and Robin Mon­tano is cam­paign­ing for him in Port-of-Spain."

Mooni­lal said the can­di­date could win his seat or be­come a cor­po­ra­tion chair­man."This means we're crim­i­nal­is­ing T&T's de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions," he said.Mooni­lal al­leged an­oth­er ILP North can­di­date was fired by a casi­no for "thief­ing" and an­oth­er in Princes Town was "fired by Re­pub­lic Bank for fraud."He al­so al­leged an ILP South can­di­date was be­fore the courts on re­cent charges of rob­bery with vi­o­lence and was known to the po­lice for com­mit­ting of­fences in­clud­ing kid­nap­ping and drug traf­fick­ing.

"When you crim­i­nalise pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions our democ­ra­cy col­laps­es–what will they do when they get in? Plun­der the Trea­sury," Mooni­lal claimed.Read­ing e-mails and their re­spec­tive ad­dress­es, Mooni­lal said he had a copy of an e-mail from ILP chair­man and Port-of-Spain co-or­di­na­tor Mon­tano (robin­mon­tano1@gmail) to Warn­er in which Mon­tano point­ed out that the ILP can­di­dates were not work­ing and were ask­ing for mon­ey.

Mooni­lal said the e-mail not­ed Mon­tano had spo­ken to one can­di­date, but the per­son had asked what he was en­ti­tled to and was re­luc­tant to work, was un­en­thu­si­as­tic about the cam­paign, but rather want­ed to know what they were en­ti­tled to.Mooni­lal added, "Mon­tano was warn­ing Warn­er about the type of can­di­dates they have in the Port-of-Spain area. Robin Mon­tano, I be­lieve you still have the de­cen­cy and con­science left, I call on you, are you con­don­ing and sup­port­ing the use of crim­i­nal el­e­ments as can­di­dates in an elec­tion?

"Robin, you come from a very dis­tin­guished fam­i­ly, your fa­ther gave dis­tin­guished ser­vice, your broth­er has a back­ground of good ser­vice al­so, I ask you, Robin, to take the good Mon­tano name out of the ILP and out of crim­i­nal­is­ing of our pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions."The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) rules main­tain a can­di­date can con­test un­less they are con­vict­ed with jail sen­tences ex­ceed­ing 12 months or the death sen­tence.