Malis­sa Lara

Vot­ers will be stain­ing their fin­gers against the hot is­sues of crime and cor­rup­tion in to­mor­row's gen­er­al elec­tion. A walk­a­bout in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try re­vealed that many cit­i­zens are peev­ed at the in­creas­ing crime sit­u­a­tion. In the three Diego Mar­tin con­stituen­cies and in Port-of-Spain, last Thurs­day, res­i­dents said the crime sit­u­a­tion was wor­rysome.

As a re­sult, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph came in for a tongue lash­ing. Sit­ting in a me­chan­ic shop in La Puer­ta, An­dre Niles said, "The main is­sue is crime. If they give an­oth­er min­is­ter a chance, it may be bet­ter. Mar­tin Joseph does not seem to know about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues. Why don't they hire some­one with ex­pe­ri­ence in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices?" Some res­i­dents in Care­nage and Pe­tit Val­ley say Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning is the is­sue. A young man sport­ing dread­locks passed by quick­ly shout­ing, "Man­ning have to go! Done talk!"

Fish ven­dor, Desmond Ryan, sat in his work­place in Big Yard, loud­ly de­clar­ing, "The Prime Min­is­ter is the is­sue. He is a se­mi-dic­ta­tor."

Over in Pe­tit Val­ley, Andy Joseph al­so said the is­sue was get­ting rid of Man­ning. "When Man­ning go, things will be bet­ter. I vot­ing on things get­ting bet­ter," he said. Re­gard­ing cor­rup­tion, many peo­ple said the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T(Ude­cott) scan­dal is a huge is­sue. Al­so the lack of an­swers on the al­leged link be­tween the Light­house of Je­sus Christ Church and the Prime Min­is­ter re­mains a con­cern.