By Sue-Ann Wayow

TRINIDAD and Tobago cannot stand another five years of the People’s National Movement (PNM) government.

If they are voted back into power on April 28, the country will not be recognisable at the end of another five-year-term.

This according to all of the speakers at a United National Congress (UNC) campaign meeting in Port of Spain on Wednesday.

The UNC Coalition of Interests parties once again urged citizens to vote out the PNM so that they can live better in the future.

Political leader of the Laventille Outreach for Vertical Enrichment (LOVE) party Lennox Smith urged, “Laventille must be part of the 39 constituencies that will go to vote for the UNC with Kamla Persad-Bissessar.”

He said Laventille which has been a predominantly PNM constituency for decades must not remain a quagmire.

“This devilish, naked abuse and retrogression that Laventille has been subjected to over the past several years under the PNM and therefore we say enough is enough and we must get rid of you and we must do so next week Monday,” he told the crowd at St John Ambulance Hall.

President General of the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) Ancel Roget said Prime Minister Stuart Young was just an extension of former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley and citizens would get no better if he was allowed to remain in the position.

UNC candidate for Caroni Central Dr David Lee said, “He (Dr Rowley) put a boy in charge to run your affairs and we must run that boy out of town on the 28th of April.”

He added, “When you look at Stuart Young track record in every ministry that he has been for the past nine years, it has been failure upon failure, upon failure.”

Lee said Young could not now want to tell citizens to start a new chapter when he has failed in all his ministerial portfolios.

He also took a jab at Young’s ethnicity.

“I am d real Chinee,” Lee said referring to himself.

He said he always thought “Chinee people could count.”

Lee said Young could not expect people to believe that settled wage negotiations at five per cent was better than what the UNC was offering at 10 per cent.

He again promised that should the UNC form the next government, the Public Services Association (PSA) negotiations will begin at 10 per cent.

Head of the PSA, Felicia Thomas, also spoke at the event.

Lee, again referring to himself, said he has been walking the length and breadth of Caroni Central and was beginning to look like a “crispy skin something” and one of the main issues was the need for water by the constituents.

“Every 15 to 16 days, they get a six-hour supply of water, they have been living like this for the past ten years… that is a tragedy, that is heartlessness,” he said.

Also speaking on the UNC platform were Opposition senators Wade Mark, political leader of the Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP) Phillip Alexander and political leader of the Congress of the People (COP) Prakash Ramadhar.

Alexander told supporters, “We have become a power family, set on fire to rescue this country.”

Speaking about UNC’s political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar he said Persad-Bissessar without using the words “national unity” has united the nation.

“Every creed and race find an equal place here!” he declared.

Alexander repeated his call for other political parties contesting the General Election to bow out of the election race and further asked the candidates to join the Coalition.

“To the candidates of those smaller parties, with all the love, I have to give, come over to the Coalition. There is room here in this mansion for everybody,” he called.

Ramadhar said, “There is a stirring of the people. There is a love that is being spread and there is a hope and optimism that a serious change is about to come to Trinidad and Tobago on the 28th.”