Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The PNM To­ba­go East and West can­di­dates say that de­spite the in­creased num­ber of con­tenders, they are not in­tim­i­dat­ed and won’t back down, as their work will speak for them on April 28.

Speak­ing at a prayer and thanks­giv­ing event at the Ma­son Hall Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day, the in­cum­bent Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis en­cour­aged vot­ers in To­ba­go West to re­ject what she called a “gam­ble with the fu­ture” and stand firm­ly be­hind the PNM.

Speak­ing to sup­port­ers, Cud­joe-Lewis said that the PNM’s lead­er­ship was strong, sta­ble, and fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing for all cit­i­zens, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion. “We of­fer ed­u­ca­tion for all, op­por­tu­ni­ties for all, de­vel­op­ment for all—not just some,” she said.

She said the elec­tion was a cru­cial de­ci­sion be­tween con­tin­u­ing with the PNM or risk­ing it with the Op­po­si­tion. “In a mat­ter of weeks, you will de­cide whether you trust Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of the UNC or Stu­art Richard Young of the PNM. That de­ci­sion will de­ter­mine whether we move for­ward with a sol­id plan or take a chance on un­cer­tain­ty,” she said.

Cud­joe-Lewis dis­missed on­line crit­i­cisms of the par­ty’s strength, say­ing that PNM sup­port­ers have al­ways re­mained com­mit­ted.

“De­spite what they try to feed us on so­cial me­dia, there are more for us than against us,” she said, call­ing on vot­ers to mo­bilise and en­sure vic­to­ry on elec­tion day.

She al­so crit­i­cised po­lit­i­cal new­com­ers, say­ing that lead­er­ship re­quires more than sud­den ac­tivism. “This time calls for true ser­vant lead­ers, not those who just got busy be­cause they were gift­ed a seat.”

In a ral­ly­ing call, Cud­joe-Lewis told the crowd that the PNM’s “well-oiled ma­chin­ery” is un­matched. “We dare not let them work our ma­chin­ery bet­ter than we do,” she said.

Mean­while, PNM To­ba­go East prospec­tive can­di­date Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy echoed the call for uni­ty.

She asked vot­ers to re­ject di­vi­sive pol­i­tics. “The PNM stands for peace, progress, and pros­per­i­ty,” she said, ar­gu­ing that the Op­po­si­tion thrives on dis­cord. “We choose com­pas­sion over con­fu­sion, de­cen­cy over delin­quen­cy, love over hate.”

Web­ster-Roy warned that choos­ing the wrong lead­er­ship would set the coun­try back.

“Your vote will shape the next five years. We must press on—not with fear, but with pur­pose.”

Both can­di­dates said that To­ba­go must not be swayed by short-term dis­sat­is­fac­tion or on­line nar­ra­tives. In­stead, they called on those on the is­land to recog­nise the PNM’s record of ser­vice and vote ac­cord­ing­ly on April 28.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the leader of the PNM, was in at­ten­dance.