Sto­ry by SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Fish­er­men demon­strat­ed out­side the Or­ange Val­ley fish mar­ket on Wednes­day, call­ing for the re­turn of Ra­mona Ram­di­al as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) can­di­date for Cou­va North.

The UNC Se­lec­tion Com­mit­tee chose to re­place Ra­mona Ram­di­al with Ravi Rati­ram, a for­mer Deputy Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of PTSC.

The group of protest­ing fish­er­men as­sem­bled around 5 am at the fish mar­ket, bear­ing plac­ards.

Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Or­ange Val­ley Pirogue As­so­ci­a­tion, An­tho­ny Hen­ry, told Guardian Me­dia why they chose to stage this morn­ing’s protest.

”She did a lot for us. When the fish­er­men died, she sup­port­ed us to the fullest; she did her du­ty,” he stat­ed. “We don’t want any­body from Rousil­lac. If no Ra­mona, no vote.”

Hen­ry said the UNC should not tram­ple on the rights of its sup­port­ers sim­ply be­cause they are in a safe seat.

The PRO of the Orange Valley Pirogue Association Anthony Henry (2nd from left), and fishermen show placards in support of booted UNC MP Ramona Ramdial, when they gathered outside the Orange Valley Fish Market, around 5 am on Wednesday. (Image: SHASTRI BOODAN)

SHASTRI BOODAN

One in­di­vid­ual, who did not wish to be iden­ti­fied, said the UNC was stalling to meet con­stituents and lis­ten to their con­cerns.

Oth­er fish­er­men said they had re­ceived tremen­dous sup­port from Ram­di­al on sev­er­al is­sues, in­clud­ing ac­tion when they could not fish be­cause of an oil spill.