Gail Alexan­der

The PNM has dis­tanced it­self from a video cir­cu­lat­ing of a man in a red PNM jer­sey in an al­leged al­ter­ca­tion with some peo­ple in a ve­hi­cle.

And, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has said there’s been no re­port to po­lice on that and he’s wait­ing to see if there is.

But the PNM has been forced to re­port van­dal­ism of their elec­tion posters, ban­ners and oth­er items in 11 con­stituen­cies— and 10 UNC ban­ners which were at var­i­ous San Fer­nan­do West lo­ca­tions were re­moved last Sat­ur­day night.

The rash of sit­u­a­tions broke out yes­ter­day as po­lit­i­cal par­ties dou­ble-down on elec­tion bat­tle in this fi­nal week to­wards next Mon­day’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

Spe­cial vot­ing will be­gin to­mor­row and con­tin­ues to 3 pm on Sun­day .

Among cam­paign is­sues is the video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia show­ing a man in an ap­par­ent red PNM T-shirt yelling at some­one in a ve­hi­cle, then hit­ting or lung­ing to hit some­one in shorts in the ve­hi­cle with what looks like a stick.

A woman’s voice is heard shout­ing “An­der­son...!” There are flash­es in the pho­to of an­oth­er per­son in red to the left of the man, oth­ers in red al­so in a ve­hi­cle be­hind him and there’s a flash of the cam­era to oth­er peo­ple in red stand­ing near parked cars, some way off.

The PNM's com­mu­ni­ca­tion man­ag­er Lau­rel Leza­ma- Lee Sing said,“The PNM doesn’t con­done vi­o­lence in any form on the cam­paign trail, in homes be­tween friends at all. The par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive isn’t aware of this sit­u­a­tion,“

She said the PNM doesn’t know the per­sons in the video, can’t iden­ti­fy if it was an in­ci­dent that may have oc­curred par­al­lel to any ac­tiv­i­ty or what it was about.

“We ‘re hear­ing talk about a 'bridge' and ‘South,’ but we checked South in­clud­ing Oropouche East, West and oth­er con­stituen­cies and they’re not aware of it . We’ve had mul­ti­ple mo­tor­cades and ac­tiv­i­ties, but no one knows about this. No one would have act­ed as a PNM agent in any vi­o­lence or such as what ap­pears to be go­ing on in this (clip).“

Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia he hasn’t got­ten a re­port or com­plaint from any­one on the sit­u­a­tion yet.

“And the Po­lice Ser­vice isn’t go­ing to be like a dog bark­ing at every pass­ing car and be used in a way to dis­cred­it or sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty or sup­port­ers.

Last week, PNM’s St Joseph cam­paign man­ag­er Noel Gar­cia wrote Grif­fith seek­ing pro­tec­tion for St Joseph can­di­date Ter­rance Deyals­ingh and ac­tivists af­ter al­leged shoot­ings and threats oc­curred in Farm Road last week Sun­day and Wednes­day af­ter PNM’s meet­ings there.

Three men were de­tained by po­lice on the is­sue . They were re­leased. But the cam­paign team yes­ter­day con­firmed shoot­ing oc­curred in Farm Road again last Sat­ur­day and a re­port­ed threats been made on Deyals­ingh’s life .

Mean­while, Leza­ma- Lee Sing said PNM has been the tar­get of van­dal­ism of elec­tion gear over the past two weeks . Re­ports have been lodged with po­lice sta­tions in con­stituen­cies where in­ci­dents oc­curred

She said in Diego Mar­tin West, Kei­th Row­ley’s face was cut out of pic­tures on ban­ners. Sim­i­lar de­fac­ing was done on posters be­long­ing to Ari­ma can­di­date Pen­ne­lope Beck­les - but the UNC can­di­date’s face was past­ed on­to the space where Beck­les’ pho­to was .

In St Joseph black paint was smeared on can­di­date Deyals­ingh’s pic­ture . In Ch­agua­nas East can­di­date Clarence Ramb­harat’s ban­ners were torn down and shred­ded.

Posters were torn down in D’Abadie O’Meara, Fyz­abad and Princes Town.

Ban­ners in St Anns’ East and Cas­cade (PoS North) were torn and de­faced.

In Lopinot/ Bon Air West and Oropouche East ban­ners were stolen and de­faced.

UNC San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date Sean Sobers yes­ter­day con­firmed 10 of his ban­ners were re­moved last Sat­ur­day night from ar­eas in Gulf City Mall, Gulf View, Gulf View Dri­ve, Em­ba­cadere, Rush­worth Street and in Mara­bel­la . T

Sobers said, ”I haven’t re­port­ed it to po­lice , but I was very sur­prised to see this. "