RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In­cum­bent San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi says it is im­pos­si­ble to please every­one at the same time, so he was not sur­prised that the Louis Bertrand HHB 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion poll found he had not done enough in his con­stituen­cy.

The poll, com­mis­sioned by Guardian Me­dia, placed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Al-Rawi in the lead against the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Sean Sobers with a 20 per cent ad­van­tage but said Al-Rawi’s main prob­lem was that he is per­ceived as do­ing noth­ing (26 per cent).

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia about the poll re­sults dur­ing a walk­a­bout on Thurs­day, Al-Rawi said the poll said this of every MP.

“Re­mem­ber there will al­ways be peo­ple who think you’ve not done enough. For the wealthy ar­eas, the is­sue of a road, hump, a drain is seen as a burn­ing is­sue; the is­sue of hous­ing for squat­ters is an equal­ly burn­ing is­sue. So I am sure that across the com­mu­ni­ty, lo­cal gov­ern­ment is­sues will plague some peo­ple and no one can ever please every­one at the same time,” Al-Rawi said.

He said the poll­ster Bertrand was well known and his find­ings were not far off from the PNM’s own in­ter­nal polls.

“We do con­stant track­ing polls and we are well ahead of the game,” Al-Rawi said.

“Whilst it is re­as­sur­ing to have an in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ty con­firm what we know al­ready, that the San Fer­nan­do West is safe­ly in the hands of the PNM and that I, as the in­cum­bent, stands in a very good po­si­tion, we in the PNM per­form on our own work sched­ule... It’s about door to door. I don’t put my faith in a poll.”

Al-Rawi said as the MP, he had di­vid­ed his con­stituen­cy and had ad­vanced its de­vel­op­ment.

“We have thou­sands of squat­ters, 8,500, liv­ing in eleven HDC set­tle­ments and the rest liv­ing in ex­treme wealth or the mid­dle. We went to the squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties and we now up to 400 homes in de­pressed in­vis­i­ble ar­eas, where peo­ple have no lands, no ser­vices and no hope. Our 11 HDC com­mu­ni­ties have been at­tend­ed to in 2016 to 2020 with mas­sive ren­o­va­tion and re­pair. We went in­to 30 projects to bring pros­per­i­ty and com­menced them in quick or­der,” Al-Rawi said.

He not­ed that the PNM al­so had a ded­i­cat­ed plan in place to bring vot­ers to the polling sta­tion in a safe man­ner.

He said be­cause of COVID-19 T&T need­ed sea­soned Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, not­ing that while he liked his op­po­nents Sobers and Pro­gres­sive Par­ty’s Nikoli Ed­wards, nei­ther man had the ex­pe­ri­ence to lead.

“Now is not the time for a trainee gov­ern­ment. It re­quires a gov­ern­ment with ex­pe­ri­ence, a sea­soned po­si­tion,” Ali-Rawi added.

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view, Ed­wards lashed back, say­ing, “Need I re­mind Mr Al-Rawi that his for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader start­ed off as an MP at the age of 24? That is four years younger than I am. I start­ed in the Sen­ate at the age of 25 and have been serv­ing groups for the ma­jor­i­ty of my adult life.

“His rhetoric of “too young to serve” is ex­act­ly what is wrong with our so­ci­ety and per­sons like him who see youth as to­kens and not as valu­able con­trib­u­tors, who in many cas­es can ac­tu­al­ly per­form bet­ter than our el­ders. In San Fer­nan­do West I be­lieve we pre­fer some­one who might be ‘too young’ rather than too ab­sent.”

Mean­while, Sobers said he has been get­ting a surge of sup­port.

“Many peo­ple are be­ing drawn in by my de­vel­op­ment plans to make trans­for­ma­tion re­al. We have been gain­ing ground dai­ly since em­bark­ing on this cam­paign,” Sobers said.

“I re­al­ly feel con­stituents are ready for bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tion and ex­cit­ed about projects to im­prove the city like de­vel­op­ing the Wharf in­to a trans­porta­tion hub. I am look­ing for­ward to con­sult­ing with my con­stituents, so they can be in­clud­ed in the de­vel­op­ment plans to help re­vi­talise San Fer­nan­do.”

He said he has been dis­trib­ut­ing masks and sani­tis­ers and has ad­hered to COVID-19 guide­lines.