Former Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner has dismissed PNM candidate Avinash Singh’s boast that he will win the seat because of a split in votes between Warner and the UNC. “He, like many in the public, must have been advised that the UNC has chosen another candidate. I was not so advised and will not comment on that,” Warner told the T&T Guardian yesterday in a telephone interview. He added: “He suggesting he knows something, that the UNC has rejected me and is putting somebody else. I was not told so officially.” Warner resigned as MP and national security minister and wants to face the polls again for the seat in a bid for validation after public calls for his resignation in the wake of a damning report on Concacaf during his tenure there as vice-president.
The UNC has so far remained tight-lipped about its candidate for the July 29 by-election but Warner recently filed nomination papers to contest the seat on a UNC ticket. Candidates have up to July 8 to file nominations. Warner said Singh, announced as the PNM candidate only last Thursday evening, has been bragging he will win between 7,000 and 8,000 of the 27,000 votes in Chaguanas West. But the former MP, who began his campaign in the area at the beginning of May shortly after his resignation, countered that he has 10,000 votes in the bag. “This shows his political naivety...I have 10,000 sure,” Warner said. Asked how he was so sure of the 10,000, Warner replied: “They have told me.” He noted, though, he does not want to be complacent and his campaigning has not stopped. “Today is a public holiday and I am going on a walkabout in Chaguanas West.”
Warner said Singh kicked off his campaign in the area by attacking him but he has no intention of reciprocating only because of the candidate’s youthfulness. “I felt that a young man was selected by the PNM to contest the seat and I should not do anything to discourage him in any way,” he said. Dr Roodal Moonilal, UNC deputy political leader, authorised by the Government to speak on the Chaguanas West by-election, responded to Singh’s boast that he will win the seat with a joke. “If the PNM fights Chaguanas West alone, with no other candidate, they will lose their deposit.” He added: “I have taken note that the PNM has selected a candidate who is more optimistic than his party.”
Moonilal did not respond to questions about Singh’s claim that he has up to 8,000 votes and Warner, 10,000, leaving the UNC with 9,000. For the first time since the seat was declared vacant, the UNC held a Monday night forum in Chaguanas West on Monday. The party’s campaign in the area is yet to start and the T&T Guardian asked Moonilal if this late start was because the party was certain of winning the seat, a traditional UNC stronghold. “The question is, why is the PNM starting its campaign so early?” he replied. According to Elections and Boundaries Commission statistics, Warner won 18,767 votes in the 2010 general election and PNM candidate Ronald Heera got 1,471.