Jack will run against UNC, PNM in Chaguanas election

Jack Warner ... running against UNC

Jack Warner announced Monday night that he would run as a candidate in the byelection in Chaguanas West on July 29, 2013. 

This means he would be opposing the candidate from his own party, Khadijah Ameen, and the PNM's Avinash Singh. He called them “little children in a big people race”.

Warner had been planning to state his intentions as a meeting in Felicity on Friday but surprised many people by making an early announcement that he would run as a candidate on July 29.

However he did not say if he run as an independent or a member of a new party. He told supporters that the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) has approved all his papers to run in the election.

"They said everything is in order, including whatever form I have decided, on your advice to go up as... and that you would know on Friday." He added that the EBC has also accepted his symbol and that supporters would also learn more about on Friday.

He also pledged that from Wednesday he would no longer wear the UNC yellow, changing it for green, which he said represents the sugar cane fields that gave "the very sustenance" of Chaguanas West.

Warner scoffed at suggestions that he might be expelled from the UNC, saying the institutions of the party have not been working and the party has violated its own rules. He said he helped nourish and keep the UNC alive and added, "You can take the UNC away from me, but you cannot take me away from the UNC."

The former UNC chairman said Chaguanas West would lead the way in Trinidad and Tobago politics.

"We...shall rise as a political grain of mustard...In Egypt, a nuts vendor started the revolution...that toppled governments," he said. "We have to be the change that this country wants us to be... and we shall show them on July 29 that change is here."