Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The mar­gin of vic­to­ry for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion will be even greater than it was in 2020, says in­cum­bent PNM MP Fos­ter Cum­mings.

But Cur­tis Cuffie, the broth­er of for­mer PNM La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP Max­ie Cuffie, has crit­i­cised Cum­mings’ op­er­a­tion in the seat.

Both spoke yes­ter­day af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro can­di­date Phillip Watts—the PNM’s for­mer con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man in the con­stituen­cy—did walk­a­bouts in the com­mu­ni­ty last Sat­ur­day.

Cur­tis Cuffie and his broth­er Dex­ter were among those sup­port­ing Watts, whom Cum­mings will be bat­tling in the forth­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Watts was an­nounced last Fri­day by the UNC as its La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro can­di­date. He was the PNM’s con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man for 14 years and worked un­der for­mer PNM MP Cuffie and par­tial­ly un­der cur­rent MP Cum­mings.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on Watts’ de­par­ture, Cum­mings, who is PNM’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary, stat­ed, “On this beau­ti­ful Sun­day af­ter­noon, the Scrip­ture for to­day is Luke Chap­ter 22. You may find that the word is as rel­e­vant to­day as it was then.”

That chap­ter speaks of the be­tray­al of Je­sus by Ju­das and re­lat­ed is­sues.

Cum­mings con­tin­ued in his mes­saged re­ply, “The peo­ple of La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro have a view of this type of be­hav­iour. The mar­gin of vic­to­ry for the PNM in 2025 will be even greater than it was in 2020 fol­low­ing their (UNC) mas­sive dis­tri­b­u­tion of free house­hold ap­pli­ances to re­cip­i­ents. We will save Trinidad and To­ba­go from the reck­less UNC.”

Max­ie’s broth­er

slams Fos­ter

Watts’ walk­a­bout last Sat­ur­day was to pro­mote the UNC’s Moru­ga meet­ing tonight, where he’ll speak. For­mer PNM MP Cuffie, with whom Watts worked, didn’t an­swer calls yes­ter­day, but Cuffie’s broth­er Cur­tis said Watts and he were very good friends.

Cuffie said, “Phillip al­ways sup­port­ed me in all my en­deav­ours. When PNM was in Op­po­si­tion in 2015, my broth­er (Max­ie), my­self and Phillip built a very good re­la­tion­ship and worked very hard on a shoe­string bud­get to bring La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro in for PNM to form Gov­ern­ment.

“Max­ie went on to be­come Min­is­ter, then be­came ill. I con­tin­ued sup­port­ing the par­ty when Cum­mings con­test­ed the seat. My son did a ma­jor cam­paign song, ‘Pros­per with Fos­ter’.”

But Cuffie claimed Cum­mings didn’t “un­der­stand what be­ing a Par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive was about” and be­haved like “the area’s CEO and he owns it.” Cuffie al­leged “im­mense dis­re­spect was “shown to him, his fam­i­ly and Watts.”

“One has to show re­spect to peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly those fight­ing for the con­stituen­cy long be­fore you ar­rived,” Cuffie added.

Cuffie said he hasn’t dis­cussed his ac­tions with his broth­er Max­ie, but his broth­er Dex­ter feels the same as him. He added that he doesn’t hold a PNM or UNC par­ty card.

“I be­lieve in the best par­ty that can take T&T for­ward but cur­rent­ly I don’t think PNM can do that,” he added

At last Sat­ur­day’s walk­a­bout with Watts, both Cuffie broth­ers wore yel­low “Vote UNC” T-shirts.

PNM’s gen­er­al coun­cil to­day

As the PNM pre­pares for next Sun­day’s pre­sen­ta­tion of its gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates, the par­ty is hold­ing an emer­gency gen­er­al coun­cil this evening, where Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ex­pect­ed to speak.

Row­ley re­cent­ly an­nounced that he would re­sign as PM on March 16.

To­day’s meet­ing is ex­pect­ed to brief mem­bers on plans for Sun­day’s can­di­date pre­sen­ta­tion, the res­ig­na­tion and tran­si­tion to PM-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young.

On Sun­day, PN­Mites will gath­er at the Port-of-Spain City Hall’s au­di­to­ri­um where the par­ty’s 41 can­di­dates will be rat­i­fied and en­dorsed by the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive. They will then be pre­sent­ed at Wood­ford Square, where Row­ley is ex­pect­ed to speak. Since the PNM’s tra­di­tion is to present GE can­di­dates in that lo­ca­tion when an elec­tion is on, there’s been ris­ing spec­u­la­tion that an elec­tion isn’t as far off as the of­fi­cial Au­gust 27 end of the term.

Row­ley was sched­uled to re­turn from a US trip yes­ter­day. He will mark the com­ple­tion of the new Port- of-Spain Gen­er­al hos­pi­tal Cen­tral block to­day and do the same on Sat­ur­day for the To­ba­go Air­port ter­mi­nal