Sascha Wil­son

Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters re­fused to com­ment on al­le­ga­tions of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence against him as he filed nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer’s of­fice at Princes Town yes­ter­day.

“No com­ment,” re­spond­ed Pe­ters as he walked off.

He en­tered a van and put up the win­dow be­fore the ve­hi­cle drove off. Pe­ters’ for­mer part­ner has tak­en out an in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der against him. He has been sum­moned to ap­pear at the Rio Claro Mag­is­trates Court on Thurs­day for the hear­ing.

Pe­ters is go­ing up against Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) Michelle Ben­jamin in the Au­gust 10 gen­er­al elec­tion.

In the last gen­er­al elec­tion, the PNM’s Dr Lovell Fran­cis de­feat­ed the UNC’s Clifton De Coteau by 533 votes in that seat.

The In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty can­di­date Clif­ford Win­ston got 49 votes. Ac­com­pa­nied by his cam­paign man­ag­er and a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Pe­ters had no fan­fare or sup­port­ers when he filed his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.

Asked why he opt­ed not to have any fan­fare, Pe­ters, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man said, “Great things are done with­out fan­fare.”

UNC candidate for Moruga/Tableland Michelle Benjamin gives a thumbs up after filing her nomination papers for the August 10 General Election in Princes Town yesterday. Also in photo is UNC vice-chairman Clifton De Coteau, left.

RISHI RAGOONATH

A for­mer UNC MP and min­is­ter, Pe­ters said, “I feel very good. This is about the fifth or sixth time I am do­ing this so I feel very, very elat­ed to do it.”

Con­fi­dent that he would win the seat, Pe­ters said he was a good rep­re­sen­ta­tive and he was rep­re­sent­ing the best gov­ern­ment in the coun­try.

Mean­while, Michelle Ben­jamin, coun­cil­lor for Hin­dus­tan/St Mary’s, brought a cel­e­bra­to­ry at­mos­phere with two mu­sic trucks, a tas­sa and drum group, flags, and more than 20 sup­port­ers.

The ma­jor­i­ty of sup­port­ers wore masks, but there was no so­cial dis­tanc­ing. Ben­jamin was al­so con­fi­dent that elec­tors will cast their votes for her and the UNC. Asked how she felt about her op­po­nent’s chances at de­feat­ing her, she said, “Hon­est­ly, I don’t re­al­ly give him a sec­ond thought. That ex-tem­po artiste would be re­tired. I know he is keep­ing a meet­ing on the street where I live to­day and that just shows that he is afraid of me. So I am a smart cam­paign­er and as my leader says I keep it clean and I am here to serve the peo­ple.”

A first-time can­di­date in a gen­er­al elec­tion, Ben­jamin said she is ready to take up the man­tle to make the con­stituen­cy a bet­ter place and get it work­ing again to sup­port the youths and her com­mu­ni­ty.