Gail Alexan­der

For­mer Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus has begged To­bag­o­ni­ans to for­give the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment for what­ev­er wrong they think the par­ty did.

And Gov­ern­ment meets with Eu­ro­pean Union of­fi­cials to­day (Fri­day) to dis­cuss get­ting T&T off the EU's black­list.

Bap­tiste-Primus made the ap­peal at Thurs­day night's Lead­ers in Ser­vice (LIS) cam­paign meet­ing in To­ba­go. En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who al­so spoke, hint­ed about the EU meet­ing.

The LIS team is seek­ing to win the PNM's ex­ec­u­tive when the par­ty holds its in­ter­nal elec­tions on No­vem­ber 26-27 and De­cem­ber 4.

Young is the can­di­date for chair­man, while Bap­tiste-Primus is seek­ing re-elec­tion as the labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer

Young briefly di­vulged to­day's meet­ing with EU of­fi­cials. T&T has been black­list­ed since the list be­came ef­fec­tive in 2017. Talks are aimed at help­ing T&T get its re­moval from the re­vised EU list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es. He said he's al­so meet­ing to­day with In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Young, who said PNM is the on­ly par­ty that can do "the job," added that To­ba­go is now find­ing that out the hard way. He urged To­bag­o­ni­ans not to lose heart, as he said he knows there is vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

Bap­tiste-Primus, who said her broth­er has been mar­ried to a To­bag­on­ian for 40 years, said she knew To­bag­o­ni­ans were hurt­ing.

"We know you're some­what dis­ap­point­ed, we know why PNM's in op­po­si­tion (in To­ba­go), we need­ed to mend fences and we didn't do that," she said.

"What­ev­er you have in your heart - feel hurt, slight­ed, dis­ap­point­ed - I humbly ask for your for­give­ness and I'm ask­ing you: we need to close ranks my To­ba­go peo­ple, we have to close ranks, be­cause if we don't close ranks ...you see we have (PNM THA Mi­nor­i­ty leader) Kelvon (Mor­ris ) and a la­dy coun­cil­lor alone, so we have to close ranks."

She said the en­tire team would de­ter­mine if PNM wins the next Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion and the To­ba­go East and West seats in the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Bap­tiste-Primus added, "For­give us for what­ev­er wrong you think we did as a team but we have your best in­ter­est at heart. Let's view these PNM elec­tions very, very se­ri­ous­ly. We must sit as fam­i­ly. All fam­i­lies go through prob­lems - all, all, all! But we could talk it out! It's like a mar­riage, To­bag­o­ni­ans! Tongue and teeth is clash but they have to live to­geth­er..."

Bap­tiste-Primus said some­times it's dif­fi­cult to for­give, but when peo­ple did so they felt lighter.

"... Let's please close ranks, help each oth­er and work with each oth­er - To­ba­go is crit­i­cal to any­thing we do."

In­dar Paras­ram who's seek­ing re-elec­tion as elec­tion of­fi­cer, said there's LG elec­tions in late 2023, gen­er­al elec­tions af­ter and THA polls. He urged To­bag­o­ni­ans to at­tend the De­cem­ber 4 con­ven­tion.