Soyi­ni Grey

Fuad Abu Bakr says he is con­test­ing the Port-of-Spain South seat un­der the New Na­tion­al Vi­sion (NNV) par­ty. He says even the PNM saw his po­ten­tial when they screened him for that seat and the NNV is well-poised to stage an up­set in the par­ty strong­hold. He says it’s un­for­tu­nate that the par­ty de­cid­ed to go with At­tor­ney Kei­th Scot­land, “be­cause he (Scot­land) will be on the los­ing end of an elec­tion bat­tle for Port-of-Spain South.”

He added, “I was the choice can­di­date by the PNM un­til they kicked me out.”

Abu Bakr said that in past few weeks, dur­ing his walks through­out Port-of-Spain he is faced with peo­ple who want to thank him for help­ing to bro­ker a peace deal be­tween war­ring fac­tions with­in the com­mu­ni­ty.

He said while on Nel­son Street on Sun­day, women came up to him to say that for the first time in a long time, their chil­dren could play out­side safe­ly, with­out fear of “a shoot-out, or a dri­ve-by”.

This is why, he said, he is con­fi­dent that the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain South will be brave enough to de­cide in his favour.

The NNV hasn’t made any of their can­di­dates pub­lic oth­er than its po­lit­i­cal leader. Abu Bakr said he is guard­ing his list jeal­ous­ly un­til it is ready. He says the NNV has plans to con­test 21 seats in the elec­tion and will fo­cus on a few spe­cif­ic ones. How­ev­er, he says suc­cess for them could mean a win of on­ly two to three seats. “If any par­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go has the abil­i­ty to get two or three seats, God bless this na­tion. We are go­ing to see a phe­nom­e­nal change in the way that politi­cians deal with each oth­er, and al­so the way they deal with the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”