Raphael John-Lall

The Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy has tra­di­tion­al­ly been a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) strong­hold. Out­go­ing MP Mar­lene Mc­don­ald has rep­re­sent­ed the area since 2007.

Four ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties be­lieve that they have what it takes to win the seat in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Some 23, 778 per­sons are el­i­gi­ble to vote in the con­stituen­cy­on Au­gust 10

Can­di­dates of the four re­spec­tive par­ties vy­ing for the seat have iden­ti­fied pover­ty, youth un­em­ploy­ment and in­fra­struc­ture as some of the prob­lems in Port-of-Spain South

NNV

Fuad Abu Bakr, the po­lit­i­cal leader of the New Na­tion­al Vi­sion (NNV), says he has a vi­sion to trans­form the Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy if elect­ed in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Bakr, 32, is a busi­ness­man and so­cial ac­tivist who lives in Bel­mont.

He is al­so the son of Yasin Abu Bakr who led the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, an event that will mark its 30th an­niver­sary in two weeks.

The NVV which has faced two pre­vi­ous gen­er­al elec­tions will be con­test­ing a to­tal of 10 seats in the next elec­tion.

Some of the main prob­lems he has iden­ti­fied in the Port-of-Spain con­stituen­cy in­clude drug abuse, home­less­ness, youth un­em­ploy­ment and pover­ty.

Bakr cit­ed the re­cent so­cial un­rest in east Port-of-Spain a few weeks ago as an ex­am­ple of the deep prob­lems the Port-of-Spain area faces.

He was ar­rest­ed dur­ing that un­rest in east Port-of-Spain and was sub­se­quent­ly giv­en bail.

He said in his ca­pac­i­ty in the past as a con­trac­tor, he has done in­fra­struc­tur­al and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion works in ar­eas like Nel­son Street and he built a re­la­tion­ship with the res­i­dents of the area.

De­spite be­ing per­ceived as a PNM “strong­hold” Bakr said suf­fer­ing and the stig­ma of the poor peo­ple of this area have made the res­i­dents there de­spise the PNM.

He de­scribes the PNM’s pres­ence in all of Port-of-Spain as be­ing “very weak.”

If elect­ed he will em­bark on a project to re­de­vel­op places like Nel­son Street, George Street, and Dun­can Street.

Curtis Orr

UNC

Cur­tis Orr, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy, is a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer who served for 20 years.

He de­cid­ed to con­test the seat on a UNC tick­et as he said the PNM does not have a track record of de­liv­er­ing on their promis­es.

Orr has spent over 30 years work­ing with dif­fer­ent Non-Gov­ern­ment Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGO’s) and as­sist­ing young peo­ple in the Port-of-Spain area and based on this ex­pe­ri­ence he is con­fi­dent that he can tack­le the prob­lems of this con­stituen­cy.

Some of the ma­jor prob­lems that he has iden­ti­fied in this area in­clude un­em­ploy­ment, crime, bad roads, and a lack of com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters and health cen­tres.

To solve the prob­lem of youth em­ploy­ment, he is go­ing to en­cour­age en­tre­pre­neur­ship and the set­ting up of small in­dus­tries like food and pa­per man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Keith Scotland

Robert Alonzo

PNM

Kei­th Scot­land has been a lawyer for al­most 25 years and he said he made the de­ci­sion get in­to elec­toral pol­i­tics based on how well the Gov­ern­ment has con­front­ed the COVID-19 re­lat­ed cri­sis.

This is his first step in­to the po­lit­i­cal are­na and Scot­land ad­mits it is a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for him as the field of pol­i­tics is very dif­fer­ent from the le­gal pro­fes­sion.

He spoke about crime and the need for bet­ter in­fra­struc­ture as be­ing chal­lenges in the con­stituen­cy.

He said the PNM has tra­di­tion­al­ly im­ple­ment­ed skills train­ing pro­grammes for young peo­ple and he in­tends to con­tin­ue these pro­grammes as well as come up with new ini­tia­tives to as­sist young peo­ple in the con­stituen­cy.

Scot­land said he has been get­ting to know the res­i­dents of the con­stituen­cy over the last few weeks and for the east­ern part of the con­stituen­cy and its so­cial prob­lems, he in­tends to look at the root caus­es and then come up with so­lu­tions for them.

Speak­ing about the work Mc­Don­ald has done in the con­stituen­cy, he said she has served with “dis­tinc­tion” and he in­tends to work hard to con­tin­ue all the pos­i­tive work that she has done.

Gail Castanada

PEP

Gail Cas­tana­da is the Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty’s (PEP) for con­stituen­cy.

Cas­tana­da lives on Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, and has been a ma­son­ry in­struc­tor in the Help­ing You Pre­pare for Em­ploy­ment (HYPE) pro­gramme in the Laven­tille Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre for the past 12 years.

This is the first time that she has thrown her hat in the po­lit­i­cal ring and she jus­ti­fies this by say­ing that the area has been ne­glect­ed for too long and she thinks that it is her re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to help solve the com­mu­ni­ty’s prob­lems.

She said the peo­ple of this con­stituen­cy are not heard or seen and the res­i­dents are over­looked by past po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tions.

Some of the main prob­lems that the area faces in­clude a lack of clean wa­ter, di­lap­i­dat­ed apart­ments, un­em­ploy­ment, and crime.

Some of the so­lu­tions that she pro­pos­es are set­ting up a tech­ni­cal school in the area to help train young peo­ple with the skills to get jobs.

If elect­ed she will al­so im­ple­ment projects to up­grade the apart­ments in the area and use labour from the con­stituen­cy to as­sist youths.