An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

There were mixed re­ac­tions in the con­stituen­cy to for­mer se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der be­ing cho­sen as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress; (UNC) can­di­date for Tu­na­puna in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

While the an­nounce­ment by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar on Sat­ur­day night ap­peared to come as a shock to some, oth­ers said they were not sur­prised and en­dorsed the se­lec­tion.

Alexan­der will be hop­ing to un­seat in­cum­bent Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date Es­mond Forde. Com­ment­ing on Alexan­der’s se­lec­tion by the UNC, road­side ven­dor Seer­am Jor­dan said, “I have no prob­lem with that.”

Al­though not­ing that Alexan­der was pop­u­lar enough, he ad­mit­ted, “He is a con­tro­ver­sial fel­la. I don’t know if he strong enough for pol­i­tics, which is a dif­fer­ent game, but we need a man like he to deal with the crim­i­nals in Tu­na­puna.”

As the vic­tim of a home in­va­sion where he and his fam­i­ly were near­ly killed back in 2023, Jor­dan said he be­lieves Alexan­der will be able to make a dent in the crime sit­u­a­tion, as he will know who and where to look for the crim­i­nals.

To Alexan­der, he ad­vised, “He can­not be so an­gry. Pol­i­tics is a nasty game. You had­da keep it cool or the fel­las will tear him apart.”

Wel­com­ing the an­nounce­ment, Gary David-Hodge, al­so known as Raw Fire, de­scribed Alexan­der as a giv­ing per­son who had been work­ing ex­treme­ly hard in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Re­gard­ing his en­try in­to the po­lit­i­cal are­na, Hodge said, “Every­body de­serves a fair chance and you see the UNC, for them plac­ing him there, it shows me that they neu­tral and I be­lieve in my heart that he is the man for the job cause he is a very se­ri­ous per­son and he put his heart and ef­fort in every­thing that he do.”

A busi­ness own­er op­er­at­ing his stall close to where Hodge ped­dled his CDs along the East­ern Main Road, Tu­na­puna, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, had a dif­fer­ent view, say­ing Alexan­der had “noth­ing to get from the peo­ple of Tu­na­puna.”

St Vin­cent Street, Tu­na­puna res­i­dent Joan De­ok­ie mean­while said Alexan­der’s nom­i­na­tion was great news for res­i­dents.

Walk­ing out of the Tu­na­puna Mar­ket with bulging bags, De­ok­ie jus­ti­fied her re­sponse, say­ing, “Cause too much crime in Tu­na­puna right now.”

Claim­ing Tu­na­puna had been a peace­ful place be­fore, De­ok­ie said, “We want back the qui­et, nice Tu­na­puna we had once be­fore, where we coul­da walk the streets at all hours.” She en­dorsed Alexan­der as “a very good choice and very well need­ed for Tu­na­puna right now. That is the per­son we need for Tu­na­puna right now.”

Ad­mit­ting Tu­na­puna was a PNM strong­hold, De­ok­ie said, “I wish he was here a lit­tle more ear­li­er be­cause elec­tion is right there but yes, I think he could do it.”

De­ok­ie and her de­ceased friend were vic­tims of crime four years ago, af­ter they were robbed of their Christ­mas shop­ping items at gun­point by a ban­dit in a taxi they had tak­en to go home. She en­cour­aged Alexan­der, “Just keep work­ing hard to bring back Tu­na­puna to where it was.”

Naresh Jaimun­gal, who has been op­er­at­ing out of the Tu­na­puna Mar­ket for over 30 years, said, “Once he could make a pos­i­tive im­pact on the crime sit­u­a­tion in Tu­na­puna, we wel­come that. I wish him all the best as a can­di­date. He prob­a­bly will get my vote once some­thing can be done about the crime sit­u­a­tion.”

He claimed there was a lot of ex­tor­tion tak­ing place in the area and even with­in the mar­ket.

“He (Alexan­der) need to come and speak with the peo­ple,” Jaimun­gal said. How­ev­er, he said many peo­ple were scared to talk and Alexan­der had his work cut out for him.

Sev­er­al oth­er per­sons who de­clined to speak on the record were crit­i­cal of the se­lec­tion.

One woman said, “I not feel­ing good about it be­cause he is not a good per­son. If he and Ian Al­leyne was friends and he treat the man so bad, he rough up the man, put hand­cuff on the man...why yuh do­ing that to that kind of per­son? In my mind, he evil.”

She added, “Even if he come, he won’t win. He used to rough up peo­ple and treat them bad. How you go­ing to come to be min­is­ter now? You can’t. It won’t wuk. Not here...let he go some­where else.”

One man said he would al­ways look for a can­di­date from the com­mu­ni­ty, some­one he could trust.

As for vot­ing for Alexan­der, he said, “I don’t know him so why should I?”

He too said he had heard of the talk of “bad ways” dog­ging Alexan­der, which was dis­cour­ag­ing to him, both as a busi­ness own­er and res­i­dent.

One woman waved her hand dis­mis­sive­ly as she said, “He need­ed to stay in the po­lice force where he be­longs.”