UNC alderman confirms defection to PNM

sto­ries by Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guard­fi­an.co.tt

Siparia al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts has of­fi­cial­ly switched po­lit­i­cal al­liances.

Roberts, who was ap­point­ed to the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion based on a rec­om­men­da­tion from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), made the an­nounce­ment as he at­tend­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sports and Fam­i­ly Day at Nel­son Man­dela Park in St Clair yes­ter­day.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Roberts, who was dressed in red, said he ter­mi­nat­ed his mem­ber­ship with the UNC be­cause he had dis­agreed with sev­er­al of its poli­cies since it won the gen­er­al elec­tion in April last year.

“Peo­ple who chose to sup­port the UNC at this time, let me tell you some­thing, they are just fool­ing the coun­try be­cause the UNC can­not man­age the econ­o­my,” Roberts said.

Roberts al­so claimed that he had con­cerns over some of­fi­cials in­clud­ing MPs.

“When you have peo­ple in the par­ty with se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion, like about nine of them, and then they come to the Par­lia­ment to talk about crime, we are just wast­ing time. If we want to solve crime, we have to start from the head,” Roberts said.

Roberts claimed he did not fear any back­lash from the UNC for his de­ci­sion.

“I work for a po­si­tion in the UNC and based on my per­for­mance, I was rec­om­mend­ed by the UNC and ap­point­ed by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC),” Roberts said.

In fact, Roberts said he serves the burgess­es of Siparia and not a par­tic­u­lar po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“That is what I do. So, I will dis­charge my du­ty with­out fear and favour in the in­ter­est of the burgess­es,” he said.

While Roberts said he had is­sues with PNM poli­cies un­der the lead­er­ship of for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, he said he sup­port­ed the cur­rent di­rec­tion of the par­ty un­der the tenure of Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who he de­scribed as the “next prime min­is­ter.”

Roberts said he could not say if his switch would re­sult in him play­ing an ac­tive role in elec­toral pol­i­tics in the fu­ture.

“I do not know what the fu­ture will hold. That will be up to the lead­er­ship of the par­ty and up to the peo­ple in my con­stituen­cy,” he said.

In De­cem­ber last year, Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo raised con­cerns over Roberts’ loy­al­ty to the UNC, af­ter he (Roberts) crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she de­scribed the coun­try as a “law­less dump.”

At the time, Mayrhoo ques­tioned whether Roberts had de­fect­ed based on his state­ments and re­port­ed him to the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive.

Al­so in at­ten­dance at the event yes­ter­day was for­mer UNC MP and gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters. Pe­ters served a sev­en-year stint as the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.