The United Workers Party candidate for Babonneau, Titus Preville, came out swinging against the record of his political opponent on Thursday night at a public meeting.
Speaking at Babonneau Playing Field, Preville questioned why John Paul Estephane, who has cited his longstanding association with the Labour Party, did not support the outgoing SLP parliamentary representative for Babonneau, Dr. Virginia Albert-Poyotte, during her tenure in office.
Estephane had previously claimed that Preville “was parachuted into the community, and is scrambling to make friends…as he tries to rediscover Babonneau”.
Preville argued that Poyotte and Estephane, as a pair, had not achieved anything of substance, particularly for the youth of the constituency.
“He said that he is and always was Labour. Well, I will not call him a liar,” Preville said. “[But] if he was Labour all that time and he watched Virginia struggling and he watched Virginia doing nothing for the young people, I ask a question. Why didn’t he help Virginia, his friend, his colleague to help the young people? So for four and a half years, he did a big fat nothing for the young people and now the same man looks at the same young people and says, ‘I have sports. I can do sports’.
“He could have done something because as he says, it was his party in government. He did nothing and then he turns and looks at the same young people and says, ‘I love you’. Now I’m ready to support you. You must kick him out. You must put him in his place. You must let him know you are intelligent people.”
Preville indicated that should the UWP return to office on December 1, Babonneau would be designated a special development area. He promised further development of youth-centered initiatives, particularly in the area of sports.
“One of the things you hear is that the young people have been neglected for the last four years. When you walk around Babonneau, the playing fields have been neglected. The sporting competitions have died. So immediately on coming to office, we have to repair our youth sporting facilities. We have to ensure La Guerre becomes a proper facility. We have to ensure that the various playing fields are up to standard. We have to organize our young people into proper clubs so we can have proper competitions to identify our talent so they can get scholarships to go to university, to learn and to become part of the international community where our footballers, our athletes, our volleyballers can get the best exposure and earn income from the ability.”
These jabs come as part of the ongoing war of words between the two candidates as they push toward election day.
