PM predicts clean sweep in local govt election

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has expressed certainty that the PNM will have a clean sweep in the local government election on Monday.

He was speaking jubilant supporters at the party’s local government closing rally at Jean Pierre Complex, Mucurapo on Saturday.

Rowley said he and his Government “are doing it right” by including the best candidates for the job which includes a larger number of women participations.

“One of the big assignments that the United Nations has been hammering all the time is equal involvement of women in your country.

“We have the fullest participation. When we selected our candidates, we selected the best people. A large chunk of the PNM Cabinet are women and, on our platform,... you would see a vast majority are women.”

Rowley added that several young people offered themselves to serve under the PNM and this has shown that the future is in good hands.

He told the crowd that they should not be vex on Monday if the elected representative is not who they wanted because they (the people) did not come out to vote.

“There are 139 seats and wherever you are there is a PNM candidate in which you can feel proud, confident and you can have trust to go to the polling station and put your “X” next to the balisier.”

Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said there is no doubt that the PNM will come out victorious on Monday.

He said they are not hiding from the problems that the country has, unlike other parties adding the Government has identified the issues and, mostly importantly, the solutions.

“On one hand we have Kamla Persad-Bissessar verses targeted methods for the improvement of crime, security, economic diversification, among other things.”

“Yes, it has been a rough five years, yet we had the resilience to hold off the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stabilise the economy, (and) keep unemployment under three per cent.”

Al-Rawi added that the PNM did well given the economic and political climate in which they had to operate in.

A total of 339 candidates – including eight independents – representing the PNM, the UNC, Movement for Social Justice (MSJ), Congress of the People (COP), Port of Spain People’s Movement (PPM), Movement for National Development (MND) and the National Transformation Party (NTP) will be contesting 139 districts up for grabs in the election.

Special voting took place earlier this week with new ballots after errors on the first batch prompted the Elections and Boundaries Commission to withdraw the spoilt ones and ask the government printer to destroy them.