RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As UNC sup­port­ers gear up to cast their votes in the in­ter­nal elec­tions to­day, the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots, led by Rush­ton Paray, and their sup­port­ers, are al­ready de­clar­ing vic­to­ry, even be­fore the first bal­lot is cast.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at his Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots com­mu­ni­ty of­fice in Pic­ton yes­ter­day, Ed­ward Mood­ie, a promi­nent com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist and mem­ber of the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots team, ex­pressed his con­fi­dence in their vic­to­ry.

“We would have achieved great­ness, no mat­ter what hap­pens on Sat­ur­day,” he said, adding, “In my heart, I think I’ve al­ready won.”

He con­tin­ued, “The UNC has been asleep for nine years; they have awok­en from their slum­ber. No mat­ter how this goes, I have achieved my ob­jec­tive of get­ting the UNC to wake up.”

While sup­port­ers say the slate has gained sig­nif­i­cant sup­port in re­gions like Tabaquite, Na­pari­ma, Rio Claro, and Ma­yaro, they still face chal­lenges in Oropouche East.

Sev­er­al peo­ple in the Na­pari­ma con­stituen­cy pre­dict­ed a win for Paray’s team. Sa­lome Manoo said peo­ple in the par­ty want­ed change.

“I think peo­ple want to be rep­re­sent­ed, and this is why I think Mr Paray can make a dif­fer­ence,” she said.

De­spite some mud­sling­ing dur­ing the cam­paign, sup­port­ers said this was all part of elec­tions.

“Yes, we had a lit­tle mud­sling­ing, but if we did not have that, it would not have been an elec­tion. It is sil­ly sea­son,” said busi­ness­man Ash­mir Mo­hammed.

At Raghoo Vil­lage and Welling­ton Road, Debe, foot sol­dier Soni­lal Kan­hai said he was con­fi­dent the Star slate would have a re­sound­ing vic­to­ry.

“When you look at the cal­i­bre of peo­ple on the Star slate, you see peo­ple like Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, David Lee, and Jear­lean John, peo­ple who have been in the UNC and giv­en their blood, sweat, and tears to build the par­ty,” Kan­hai said.

With over 12,000 peo­ple vot­ing in the last UNC in­ter­nals, par­ty troops say they will be or­gan­is­ing trans­porta­tion for vot­ers.

“Our foot sol­diers are in­tact, trans­porta­tion is in place, and guide­lines are set to en­sure there are no hic­cups,” Kan­hai said.

Joe Sir­ju, a for­mer vice chair­man of the par­ty’s elec­tion com­mit­tee, al­so said he was con­tent that the cam­paign went well.

“I think the cam­paign was quite rea­son­able; both sides did very well. I don’t think there was any sig­nif­i­cant mud­sling­ing be­cause when we have elec­tions, it’s a dif­fer­ent thing. But this is a fam­i­ly af­fair,” Sir­ju said.

With trans­porta­tion and lo­gis­ti­cal arrange­ments in place, Sir­ju said, peo­ple were ready to vote.