Election tempers flare up

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has is­sued a stern warn­ing to To­bag­o­ni­ans that of­fi­cers will act “firm­ly” against any mis­con­duct dur­ing to­day’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, fol­low­ing the launch of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a vi­o­lent in­ci­dent in­volv­ing mem­bers of the is­land’s two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties yes­ter­day.

And the lead­ers of both par­ties are seek­ing to re­mind To­bag­o­ni­ans that life must go on in har­mo­ny no mat­ter who wins lat­er to­day.

On the eve of the elec­tions yes­ter­day, dur­ing fi­nal mo­tor­cades held by both the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) across the is­land, a nasty al­ter­ca­tion oc­curred along the Mil­ford Road in Bon Ac­cord.

Short­ly af­ter 1 pm, Guardian Me­dia wit­nessed an ar­gu­ment be­tween one TPP sup­port­er and a group of PNM sup­port­ers out­side the cam­paign of­fice of Dom­inque Kerr, the PNM’s can­di­date for Bon Ac­cord/Crown Point.

An el­der­ly man wear­ing a PNM jer­sey was seen dous­ing gaso­line on a TPP flag that was crum­pled on the pave­ment. He then lit the flag on fire. Next to him, parked on the road­way, was a Nis­san wag­on which was adorned with TPP flags and ban­ners.

The TPP sup­port­er came out of her ve­hi­cle and start­ed ar­gu­ing with an­oth­er woman who was wear­ing a PNM jer­sey and hold­ing a PNM flag.

“Go up the road, just go up the road!” the PNM woman shout­ed at the TPP sup­port­er, who was clear­ly an­gry over the burn­ing of her par­ty’s flag.

“Why you do that? Why you do that?” the TPP sup­port­er asked, mo­tion­ing to the burnt flag on the pave­ment.

Her ques­tions were drowned out by the PNM sup­port­er, who start­ed blow­ing a red plas­tic horn at her po­lit­i­cal op­po­nent.

The TPP sup­port­er then re­turned to the dri­ver’s front door and com­plained to Guardian Me­dia.

She said, “I just go­ing my way, me ain’t busi­ness with them peo­ple there and he just grab off my flag and set it on fire.”

She added, “What is their prob­lem? I just go­ing my way. I ain’t say noth­ing to them. I ain’t in­ter­fere with them. I just dri­ving and go­ing my way. This stu­pid a** man, this PNM man pull off my flag and throw it in the fire.”

The PNM sup­port­er who was blow­ing the horn then spoke up. She clear­ly knew her foe, as she called the TPP woman by name and re­tort­ed, “No­body pull off your flag. You like too much of bac­cha­nal, no­body pull off your flag. Don’t let pol­i­tics come be­tween we girl.”

The TPP sup­port­er then said, “Why you don’t go and take care of your dis­abled child.”

This was when the ex­change of words be­came an ex­change of blows.

The PNM sup­port­er ad­vanced on the TPP sup­port­er, with the lat­ter pulling out a knife from her car. The PNM sup­port­er, how­ev­er, was backed up by her daugh­ter, who was al­so wear­ing a PNM jer­sey and hold­ing a PNM flag.

A scuf­fle en­sued be­tween the three, with the PNM sup­port­er’s daugh­ter kick­ing the TPP sup­port­er and then fol­low­ing that up with a strike with the flag pole. The TPP woman turned her back in re­treat and some oth­er PNM sup­port­ers then stepped in to stop the fight.

The PNM sup­port­er’s daugh­ter still had to be re­strained, as she be­came irate that the TPP sup­port­er sought to pull a knife for her moth­er and seem­ing­ly in­sult­ed her sib­ling.

The TPP sup­port­er was urged to go in­to her car and dri­ve off. But be­fore she could leave, the PNM sup­port­er’s daugh­ter gave her a part­ing slap to her face.

Fol­low­ing the al­ter­ca­tion, the PNM sup­port­er sought to ex­plain to Guardian Me­dia what had trig­gered her.

“I try­ing to un­der­stand how a moth­er with a spe­cial needs child could cuss an­oth­er moth­er with a spe­cial needs child and take out a knife for me.”

Guardian Me­dia in­formed Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) Suzette Mar­tin, who is in To­ba­go as the Gold Com­man­der for the elec­tions, of the in­ci­dent. She asked for the lo­ca­tion of the in­ci­dent and a copy of the footage.

Lat­er that day, DCP Mar­tin told Guardian Me­dia, “An in­ves­ti­ga­tion is ac­tive­ly on­go­ing. Ahead of elec­tion day in To­ba­go, the TTPS urges calm and re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour. Po­lice of­fi­cers are de­ployed is­land­wide and will act firm­ly against any dis­or­der or in­tim­i­da­tion. I al­so urge cit­i­zens to co­op­er­ate with po­lice of­fi­cers on du­ty and al­low the elec­tion to take place peace­ful­ly and with­out dis­rup­tion.”

Po­lit­i­cal lead­ers for both par­ties al­so ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the con­duct of their sup­port­ers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia in Canaan, PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil Leader An­cil Den­nis said, “There was an­oth­er video cir­cu­lat­ing with a fight tak­ing place, I think it was in Mary’s Hill. I sim­ply want to ap­peal for calm and for com­mon sense to pre­vail on both sides.

“Yes, an elec­tion is a com­pe­ti­tion, and we can achieve the ob­jec­tives of com­pet­ing by deal­ing with the is­sues, by deal­ing with our plans and our vi­sion, which of course are dif­fer­ent in many ways. And there­fore, we re­al­ly don’t have to and we should not re­sort to vi­o­lence. And there­fore, I want to ap­peal to all To­bag­o­ni­ans for calm. All of us must con­tin­ue to live here af­ter Mon­day, no mat­ter who wins the elec­tion.”

TPP deputy leader Dr Faith Breb­nor al­so called on all To­bag­o­ni­ans to “do bet­ter.”

Dr Breb­nor told Guardian Me­dia, “This is ex­treme­ly dis­turb­ing. To­ba­go’s pol­i­tics has al­ways been about sup­port for your re­spec­tive par­ties, but in de­cen­cy, or­der and re­spect.

“The TPP has and will con­tin­ue to en­cour­age its sup­port­ers, in fact, all of To­ba­go, to cam­paign in a way that al­lows us to con­tin­ue liv­ing as one af­ter Mon­day 12th. We ex­pect bet­ter! As lead­ers of the TPP we de­mand bet­ter! To­ba­go is all ah we!”

Al­so in the video, the PNM sup­port­ers pulled out hun­dred-dol­lar bills and claimed that mem­bers of the TPP mo­tor­cade had hand­ed them out in ex­change for their sup­port.

How­ev­er, Breb­nor cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied that.

“This is a fool­ish claim. I’ve learned one thing over the last cou­ple years though, is that the PNM is the mas­ter of pro­jec­tion. If they have ac­cused you of some­thing, it’s be­cause they have, they are, or they plan to do the very thing they ac­cuse you of. Ut­ter fool­ish claim!”