‘Yellowwash’ coming for 2015—McLeod
Published: Friday, November 8, 2013Kevon Felmine
Published: Friday, November 8, 2013.
After four successive election defeats in a year, Labour Minister Errol McLeod says the People’s Partnership would be correcting its mistakes in the lead-up to the 2015 general elections. After that, Mc Leod said he expects a “yellow-wash” at the polls and that the People’s Partnership victory over the People’s National Movement would be even greater than that of 2010. In the last general election, the PP got 29 seats while the PNM got 12.
Summing up his take on the party’s loss at his Pointe-a-Pierre constituency office in Marabella on Wednesday, McLeod said, “Well, certainly one could not feel good if one is on the side that is considered to have lost. “What we have to do is examine the reasons why we may have incurred a loss and work assiduously to correcting it at the next run. So in 2015, I anticipate that the partnership is going to be like an avalanche. We are going beyond the 2010 results.
We are going to learn from the last four elections and we will not repeat the same ditches into which we slipped and the partnership is going to be like an avalanche. We’ll settle for a yellow wash.” The PP lost the Tobago House of Assembly elections to the PNM, the local government elections to the PNM and the St Joseph by-election to the PNM, and the Chaguanas West by-election to the Independent Liberal Party (ILP).
Mc Leod, however, refused to add the ILP into the fray, saying it was bound to dwindle away before 2015. “I don’t anticipate that the ILP will be there at all. I think Mr (Jack) Warner is going to be kept busy with certain other very important items,” Mc Leod said. Showing confidence in a resurgent government, Minister of the People Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh said the PP was getting stronger and the loss in St Joseph on Monday was an indicator of that.
Not worried about the ILP splitting the votes in 2015, he said the party had been inundated with calls from people who were coming back to it. “What I can tell you is that the UNC is receiving calls, off the hook, from people who are coming back home. There is a massive homecoming to the UNC, I can certainly tell you that.
“I think that we are more concerned with rebuilding our connection with the people and the partnership is reviewing its performance and assessing what we need to do over the next year. That is our preoccupation right now. “It’s happening already, the partnership is getting stronger and stronger, and St Joseph was an indication of that,” Ramadharsingh said.
School supplies grants distributed
Mc Leod distributed 43 school supply grants to members of his Pointe-a-Pierre constituency, each with a value of $510. The grants, which came in the form of one-time debit card, were from the Ministry of the People and Social Development. “We had intended to hand this out before the opening of the new school term but there are always there little hiccups with bureaucracy and then we had to go through the banking system,” he said.
“I am sure that the recipients of these grants will appreciate very deeply the efforts of the government to assist so many people in society who without this kind of assistance were going to have more difficulties than they are in now.” He said although the grants were costing the government a lot, helping people in their need was one of its purposes. Ramadharsingh told reporters that programmes such as these were reasons why people should support the Government.
