‘Different political beast’

Tobago West MP Shamfa Cudjoe on Tuesday encouraged supporters to watch the Netflix documentary The Great Hack, which, she said, urged Africans to stay away from the polls.

Addressing the PNM's Tobago West constituency conference at the Lowlands Multipurpose Facility, Cudjoe said it was important for every PNMmite to get the chance to see the documentary.

"If you don’t have the time to watch it in your homes, I think that we need to organise a movie night. We have to sit down as PNM people and watch that from beginning to end, because it goes all the way back to 2010. That is all our business. That is our business, we need to understand what this Cambridge Analytica issue is all about because we’re living in different times, different trends, different strategies and different political beasts.”

Cudjoe claimed the aim of Cambridge Analytica was to suppress not just the voters but African voters.“Who wants to say I’m racist, I’m calling it as it is.

“Even right now it is still at work. They’re creating fake profiles, there are nameless, faceless people on the internet in thousands –not in hundreds, in thousands – to ill-speak the PNM and cause you not to go out there and vote, because they know you’re not going out there to vote for the UNC."

Cambridge Analytica was a British company which took data from social media for use in politcal campaigns on behalf of parties in several countries. It declared bankruptcy last year. It was set up in 2013 and was a subsidiary of a company called SCL.

Cudjoe said: "Just to make you sour, to make you feel the PNM is not doing anything for you – that politics is a nasty thing. They were actually saying, 'Don’t go to the polls,' but if you don’t go, and Vashti somewhere down in Siparia goes, your vote is not counted because you didn’t vote, she going out there and vote for Kamla, and all their people going out there and vote for them, while we home upset,”She urged her hearers to use their right to vote, saying, "People fought and died for that, people fought and died for democracy. There are people all over the world in certain countries that wish to taste democracy and we have it right here. Make me and my household en vote – that’s not happening in my household. You have to ensure that your household votes."