Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

As the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pre­pares to re­lease its Gen­er­al Elec­tion man­i­festo on to­day (Aprile 16), Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) To­co/San­gre Grande can­di­date Wayne Sturge last night ac­cused the PNM of com­ing with their man­i­festo "to sell the vot­ing pub­lic more dreams as they did with their 2015 and 2020 man­i­festoes which didn't de­liv­er."

Sturge made the com­ment at a meet­ing in the UNC To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy.

The PNM yes­ter­day an­nounced that it will be re­leas­ing its man­i­festo at 1.30 pm to­day. In a re­lease, PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­ings said it will be an "all-en­com­pass­ing, all-em­brac­ing na­tion­al plan geared to­wards build­ing on the PNM's very good work to im­prove cit­i­zens' dai­ly lives."

Sturge, who acid­ly slammed Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and PNM To­co/San­gre Grande can­di­date Roger Mon­roe at length, said, "They're com­ing with their man­i­festo now, but ap­ply some com­mon sense - when they came with their man­i­festo in 2015, when they were sell­ing dreams, but when you look at it, nine times out of 10 they didn't de­liv­er.

"When you look at their 2020 man­i­festo, they came again sell­ing dreams and again nine times out of ten they didn't de­liv­er - and now in 2025 they're again try­ing to sell you more dreams, what makes you think they will de­liv­er?!"

Sturge said he had a mes­sage for Mon­roe, as he al­ready had his man­i­festo for the con­stituen­cy typed up but felt Mon­roe was wait­ing for him to pub­lish it.

"But he'll wait a long wait, as when I un­leash my man­i­festo he'll have no time to re­spond," Sturge said.

Sturge, who nick­named Mon­roe af­ter a car­toon char­ac­ter, said Mon­roe had gone in­to over­drive, "and is try­ing to do in two weeks what he didn't do in five years."

Sturge said when the UNC en­ters gov­ern­ment he has no in­ten­tion of be­com­ing a min­is­ter, as to fix To­co/San­gre Grande's prob­lems - which are fix­able - it would re­quire a ded­i­cat­ed full-time MP. He ac­cused Mon­roe of do­ing noth­ing for five years al­though he had no min­istry.

"He has no ex­cuse - vote him out!" Sturge said.

Sturge, who slammed that "crazy racism talk" from the PNM, added, "... When he come with that we have to chase dat Chi­nee out­ta town, we're all one peo­ple, in­clud­ing the Syr­i­an and Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ties ... what sep­a­rates us less than one per cent of our DNA ac­counts for our racial dif­fer­ence. Race is not a bi­o­log­i­cal but a so­cial con­struct. If you count it as $100, race ac­counts for 10 cents out of that $100. Not even $1!

"What makes us dif­fer­ent is less than one per cent ... tell him, rock so Stu­art Young! Chase him out­ta To­co/San­gre Grande! Chase him out­ta T&T! We don't want no racism in T&T as we're all one. Let the one per cent rock so wid dat!"

Sturge said To­co/San­gre Grande is the largest con­stituen­cy but al­so the poor­est, with one of the high­est un­em­ploy­ment rates and by far the worst roads.

Al­so speak­ing was UNC St Au­gus­tine can­di­date Kadi­jah Ameen, who re­count­ed the par­ty's promis­es on health­care.

"If we wait for PNM to save our life, all ah we dead," Ameen de­clared.