Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) “shad­ow MP” for San Fer­nan­do East John Michael Al­i­bo­cus says he is ready to serve as the con­stituen­cy’, as tur­moil deep­ens with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) strong­hold.

Al­i­bo­cus, who came with­in 673 votes of un­seat­ing PNM MP Bri­an Man­ning in last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion, has seized on the grow­ing in­ter­nal con­flict to re­new his crit­i­cism of Man­ning’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion and po­si­tion him­self as an al­ter­na­tive for con­stituents.

Al­i­bo­cus said the PNM’s lat­est tur­moil re­in­forced con­cerns he has raised about Man­ning.

“The in­ter­nal col­lapse of the PNM is a mat­ter for the PNM. I have long main­tained that the con­stituen­cy San Fer­nan­do East was abysmal­ly served by Bri­an. That is not new,” he said.

He claimed res­i­dents had com­plained about the qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion for years, in­clud­ing dur­ing the decade when the PNM was in gov­ern­ment. He said when he of­fered him­self as the UNC’s can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy, he as­sured Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that he would re­main “ground­ed and fo­cused” on im­prov­ing the lives of res­i­dents. He said de­spite los­ing the elec­tion, he has con­tin­ued work­ing through­out San Fer­nan­do East and San Fer­nan­do.

“To res­i­dents of San Fer­nan­do East, my ac­tions have demon­strat­ed my will­ing­ness to serve,” he said.

Al­i­bo­cus’ most re­al­is­tic chance of of­fer­ing him­self to the elec­torate again be­fore 2030 would be through a by-elec­tion trig­gered by Man­ning’s res­ig­na­tion as MP, al­though Man­ning has giv­en no in­di­ca­tion he in­tends to step down.

His com­ments come as Man­ning finds him­self in­creas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed amid a bit­ter dis­pute that be­gan be­tween the MP and his con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive and has now spilled over in­to a con­fronta­tion with the wider par­ty.

The en­tire San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, led by chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, re­signed yes­ter­day, af­ter weeks of pub­lic ex­changes in­volv­ing Man­ning. The ex­ec­u­tive said the de­ci­sion fol­lowed a meet­ing with the lead­er­ship and was in­tend­ed to fa­cil­i­tate an or­der­ly tran­si­tion ahead of con­stituen­cy elec­tions.

The fall­out fol­lowed com­plaints raised by Man­ning and Alex­is, which prompt­ed the par­ty’s gen­er­al coun­cil to ap­point an in­quiry team. Its re­port was sub­se­quent­ly con­sid­ered by the par­ty’s lead­er­ship but ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed af­ter Man­ning pub­licly ques­tioned as­pects of the process.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has re­buked Man­ning over the state­ments.