Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Con­stituents of Port-of-Spain South are not shy­ing away from the con­tro­ver­sies of their for­mer MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald but in­sist she did her best to serve their com­mu­ni­ty.

Mc­Don­ald, 64, died at the St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre on Fri­day morn­ing af­ter a pe­ri­od of ill­ness.

She served as Port-of-Spain South MP from 2007 to 2019.

Mc­Don­ald’s lat­er po­lit­i­cal ca­reer was mired in con­tro­ver­sy be­gin­ning in 2016 dur­ing her stint as Min­is­ter of Hous­ing when she au­tho­rised a house for her com­pan­ion, Michael Carew.

In June of 2017, she was re-hired as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion but fired again days lat­er when she in­vit­ed re­put­ed un­der­world fig­ure Cedrick “Burkie” Burke to her swear­ing-in at the Pres­i­dent’s house.

In 2019, Mc­Don­ald re­ceived sev­en crim­i­nal charges of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing.

She was not screened for the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion and was suc­ceed­ed by cur­rent MP Kei­th Scot­land.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed dif­fer­ent parts of Port-of-Spain South yes­ter­day and spoke with res­i­dents who said de­spite her flaws, Mc­Don­ald worked hard to raise the qual­i­ty of life for them.

Speak­ing at her Basilon Street home, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Chris­tine “Twig­gy” Levia said Mc­Don­ald would be re­mem­bered for her strong work eth­ic and de­sire to bring about mean­ing­ful so­cial change in the neigh­bour­hoods she rep­re­sent­ed.

Levia ad­mit­ted that while she was some­times open­ly crit­i­cal of Mc­Don­ald dur­ing her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, she nev­er re­sort­ed to per­son­al at­tacks and main­tained a friend­ly rap­port with her de­spite dif­fer­ences in opin­ions.

“I is a woman who used to war Mar­lene. I would war Mar­lene in the morn­ing and in the evening she would call me or come to my house to talk.

“That is a woman we will nev­er for­get, and I say this with tears in my eyes be­cause she might not have done for me but she did a lot for oth­ers.

“She helped the peo­ple she want­ed to help.”

Levia was al­so crit­i­cal of the cur­rent PNM mem­ber­ship not­ing that de­spite serv­ing the par­ty for over a decade, she did not feel Mc­Don­ald was giv­en the cred­it or re­spect owed to her.

She al­so ar­gued that Mc­Don­ald’s hands were “tied” by the par­ty’s lead­er­ship as she was nev­er giv­en the chance or re­sources to en­act long-term changes in her con­stituen­cy.

“If they could do Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald that, they could do that to any­body in the PNM.

“To­day you’re up and to­mor­row you can be done af­ter you gave all that ser­vice to your coun­try, that is what you get af­ter.”

Sea Lots busi­ness­man Ken­roy Dop­well said Mc­Don­ald’s pass­ing was a loss to not on­ly her con­stituen­cy but the na­tion.

Dop­well had at­tend­ed Mc­Don­ald’s swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at the Pres­i­dent’s house in 2017 along with Burke.

He said de­spite her im­per­fec­tions, Mc­Don­ald was sin­cere in her de­sire to help oth­ers.

“She was a moth­er, an aunt, a sis­ter.

“I can even say a sad day for the coun­try be­cause she was a good politi­cian and he who is with­out sin cast the first stone, so who­ev­er wants to say this or that go ahead.

“I know her for her good­ness. She fought for poor peo­ple to try and get them to rise up.”

Sea Lots res­i­dent Cheryl Ann Bent­ley told Guardian Me­dia that while she some­times had a dif­fer­ence in opin­ion with Mc­Don­ald, she re­mem­bered her as a fair, help­ful per­son who gave her­self ful­ly to her com­mu­ni­ty.

“To me, she was a good per­son, every­body has their ways. We had our dis­agree­ments and we even­tu­al­ly patched things up and we went well un­til she was no longer in her post.

“She was an un­der­stand­ing per­son.”

Port-of-Spain South stretch­es from Sea Lots on the east­ern out­skirts of the city to St James on the west­ern edge, cov­er­ing the en­tire city. It is bor­dered by Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s East and Laven­tille West.