Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

De­spite protest ac­tion by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­bers yes­ter­day call­ing on al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts to re­sign af­ter cross­ing the floor to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Roberts stood firm, de­clar­ing that he has no in­ten­tion of step­ping down.

Bear­ing plac­ards, UNC sup­port­ers marched from Ir­win Park along the SS Erin Road and en­tered the com­pound of the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion chant­i­ng, “Roberts Must Go.”

A pe­ti­tion call­ing for Roberts’ res­ig­na­tion was hand­ed to Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo af­ter sup­port­ers ac­cused the al­der­man of be­tray­ing the UNC by de­fect­ing to the PNM.

Re­ject­ing claims by Roberts that he was ap­point­ed by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), Mayrhoo said Roberts’ ap­point­ment as a UNC al­der­man was based on the rec­om­men­da­tion of then-Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Ac­cus­ing Roberts of hin­der­ing de­ci­sion-mak­ing with­in the cor­po­ra­tion, Mayrhoo said, “If you de­cide to take up your ja­ha­ji bun­dle and go, you need to re­sign. You can­not take your chair, a UNC chair, and car­ry it and put it by the PNM and say I sup­port­ing the PNM.”

He not­ed that politi­cians some­times have to “toe the line” and said those un­will­ing to do so have no busi­ness in pol­i­tics.

Mayrhoo al­so claimed the PNM was us­ing Roberts and would “dump him” next year.

De­scrib­ing him as a “frog hop­per politi­cian,” the may­or de­clared, “He has no ho­n­our. He has no in­tegri­ty.”

He claimed Roberts has as­pi­ra­tions of con­test­ing the Erin seat in the up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, but pre­dict­ed he would lose.

Mayrhoo said the pe­ti­tion would be for­ward­ed to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, but ac­knowl­edged that un­der cur­rent lo­cal gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion, al­der­men and coun­cil­lors can­not be re­moved by po­lit­i­cal par­ties even if they cross the floor.

Roberts’ de­fec­tion fol­lows for­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali cross­ing the floor to the PNM and the death of UNC coun­cil­lor Romona Vic­tor, shift­ing the bal­ance of pow­er in the cor­po­ra­tion.

Roberts said he re­signed from the UNC more than two months af­ter the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. While his ap­pli­ca­tion to be­come an of­fi­cial mem­ber of the PNM has been ap­proved, he said he has not yet re­ceived his par­ty card.

De­spite this, he said he saw noth­ing wrong with re­tain­ing one of the two UNC al­der­man seats in the cor­po­ra­tion.

Not­ing that he was not the first per­son to cross the floor, Roberts ques­tioned why he was be­ing tar­get­ed.

“Is it be­cause I am a proud black man?” he asked.

Roberts said if any­one should re­sign from the cor­po­ra­tion, it should be the may­or, whom he ac­cused of poor lead­er­ship and bul­ly­ing.

He ad­mit­ted to vot­ing against the al­lo­ca­tion of more than $1 mil­lion to the Oropouche West con­stituen­cy be­cause he did not be­lieve it would ben­e­fit burgess­es.

Roberts claimed Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er called him un­grate­ful and in­struct­ed him to sup­port the may­or.

“I am here as an al­der­man to look af­ter the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple and there are times that I vote against de­ci­sions of the PNM and there are al­so times I vote against de­ci­sions of the UNC. And my rea­son for that is I am here to look af­ter the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple.

“It mat­ters not to me what the may­or says or feels. I will con­tin­ue to be the checks and bal­ances in this cor­po­ra­tion un­til such time when my time is up or the gov­ern­ment dis­solves and calls fresh elec­tions,” he said.

Roberts al­so ques­tioned how po­lice al­lowed the protest dur­ing the State of Emer­gency and called on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to state whether per­mis­sion had been grant­ed.