SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

For­mer chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SGRC) Ter­ry Ron­don is blam­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) poor choice of (SGRC) can­di­dates for their de­feat at the De­cem­ber 2 polls.

Ron­don be­lieves the bad de­ci­sions by the par­ty gave the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) the edge to wrest con­trol of the SGRC which the PNM won in 2016.

The UNC cap­tured five seats with the PNM win­ning Va­len­cia, San­gre Grande North­east and Va­len­cia East/To­co dis­tricts.

Ex­press­ing dis­ap­point­ment at the re­sults, Ron­don who won the Va­len­cia East/To­co seat against his UNC ri­val Ker­wyn Charles ad­mit­ted that one mis­take the PNM made was not putting the right can­di­dates to fight their op­po­nent.

He said par­ty groups and MPs have to stop bring­ing “their friends and fam­i­ly” to be screened at Bal­isi­er House as can­di­dates.

Ron­don said the minute an in­di­vid­ual is se­lect­ed to con­test an elec­tion they for­get about serv­ing the peo­ple and in­stead fo­cus on their full-time jobs.

“I call on par­ty groups to stop pick­ing your favourites. It’s time the elec­torate se­lect the can­di­date of their choice....some­one they have con­fi­dence in...peo­ple who are com­mit­ted to do­ing the job. The PNM has to go out in the com­mu­ni­ties and find out from the peo­ple who they want rep­re­sent them. This can­not be done at Bal­isi­er House. Let the hi­er­ar­chy of the par­ty send out their scouts and lis­ten to the voice of the peo­ple,” he said.

The PNM, Ron­don said, al­so failed to seek his ap­proval of can­di­dates.

“I nev­er had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rec­om­mend any­body.”

Ron­don said for an in­cum­bent to lose their seat is an in­dict­ment on their poor per­for­mance and lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion dur­ing their term in of­fice.

“It means they did not do their home­work in the last three years. We have to do our work by go­ing back to the draw­ing board and see where we went wrong. What is hurt­ing me, San­gre Grande is a PNM town,” Ron­don said.

He in­sist­ed that the PNM should not have been de­feat­ed.

Ques­tioned if the PNM made a grave mis­take by re­s­e­lect­ing some of their 2016 coun­cil­lors to con­test Mon­day’s polls, Ron­don said yes, but stopped short of call­ing names.

He said the par­ty did not lis­ten for which they were now pay­ing a heavy price.

“I will tell it as it is. We have to wake up and smell the cof­fee. My work can­not be go­ing down the drain. I worked re­al­ly hard this elec­tion. I am dis­ap­point­ed, yes.”

Ron­don said he was baf­fled as to how the PNM lost the mar­gin­al San­gre Grande North­west seat which they fought hard to re­tain.

Lead­ing up to the elec­tion, burgess­es in this elec­toral dis­trict ben­e­fit­ted from paving of sev­er­al streets, but it was not enough to woo vot­ers.

The PNM had an­tic­i­pat­ed win­ning six seats in the SGRC based on their strong cam­paign­ing and sup­port base.

“I was look­ing at six or sev­en seats.”

The hype of PNM sup­port­ers in San­gre Grande dur­ing cam­paign­ing, Ron­don said back­fired on them.

“Any­time we lose it is hard. I say it again crowd don’t win elec­tions.”

Ron­don said it is time for the PNM to do some in­tro­spec­tion.

He said he in­tends to raise the se­lec­tion of can­di­dates with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley when next they meet.

“We got to sit down. We have to see where we went wrong and we have to cor­rect it. We have a gen­er­al elec­tion to fight in a cou­ple of months.”

Once the er­rors are cor­rect­ed and the right can­di­date is cho­sen, Ron­don is op­ti­mistic the PNM can bring home vic­to­ry for the To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.