PNM to begin screening nominees for general election Thursday

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There are ap­prox­i­mate­ly four ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from in­di­vid­u­als to con­test the Barataria/San Juan seat for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, in­clud­ing a promi­nent name in the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and in pol­i­tics.

This was con­firmed by PNM of­fi­cials ahead of Thurs­day’s dead­line for sub­mis­sion of nom­i­nees from nine con­stituen­cies.

In June, PNM leader Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley man­dat­ed par­ty units from the nine ar­eas, which are cur­rent­ly held by the Op­po­si­tion, to start seek­ing nom­i­nees. They were sub­se­quent­ly giv­en an Au­gust 15 dead­line by which to present nom­i­nees’ names.

A PNM state­ment yes­ter­day con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion pe­ri­od ends at 4 pm on Thurs­day.

Screen­ing will be­gin short­ly there­after for the nom­i­nees for the nine con­stituen­cies. The PNM stat­ed that it “looks for­ward to field­ing 41 can­di­dates in the 41 con­stituen­cies when­ev­er the gen­er­al elec­tion is called.”

In Barataria/San Juan, the unit will be de­cid­ing who it will in­form the screen­ing team it will sup­port for can­di­da­cy there. Of­fi­cials said there was in­ter­est from a per­son from the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty who is “well placed in the po­lit­i­cal spec­trum/Par­lia­ment.” There is al­so in­ter­est from a for­mer MP, a for­mer po­lice­man, and a busi­ness­man.

The par­ty’s Moru­ga/Table­land unit will al­so be de­cid­ing among nom­i­nees who have is­sued ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est to par­ty groups for their sup­port.

For­mer MP Dr Lovell Fran­cis, via a let­ter on Ju­ly 26, in­di­cat­ed his will­ing­ness to be nom­i­nat­ed to the par­ty group chair­man. It could not be con­firmed yes­ter­day ex­act­ly how many groups were nom­i­nat­ing him.

Oth­er Moru­ga nom­i­nees are ed­u­ca­tor and PNM Lengua/In­di­an Walk cam­paign man­ag­er Lisa At­wa­ter, busi­ness man­age­ment ex­pert Kernisha Prince-King and a UWI lec­tur­er.

Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la‘s unit will be de­cid­ing from among three new faces—a fe­male busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ist, a fe­male fi­nance ex­pert and a busi­ness­man. Sources said none are for­mer UNC peo­ple. Two oth­ers who ini­tial­ly ex­pressed in­ter­est re­cent­ly dropped out.

The Pointe-a-Pierre unit has re­ceived ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from two ath­letes—one of whom rep­re­sent­ed T&T in track and field events, and two busi­ness­men, in­clud­ing a for­mer busi­ness group head who comes from a well-known PNM fam­i­ly, sources said.

In Ma­yaro, there are four ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est, in­clud­ing from ac­coun­tant/au­di­tor Janes­sa Camp­bell (for­mer MP Vic­tor Camp­bell’s great-grand­daugh­ter) and at­tor­ney Asha Hard­eo-Dhan­pat. Both women are trea­sur­ers of PNM’s Ma­yaro ex­ec­u­tive and its Ma­yaro Women’s League re­spec­tive­ly.

Al­so seek­ing can­di­da­cy is for­mer PNM nom­i­nee, Ma­yaro busi­ness­man Bun­ny Ma­habirs­ingh, and pos­si­bly an­oth­er busi­ness­man from the area, who’s a for­mer (de­ceased) Sen­a­tor’s son. The lat­ter’s yet to be con­firmed.

Ch­agua­nas East of­fi­cials said there was in­ter­est in hav­ing Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works Richie Sookhai con­test the seat. Sookhai did not an­swer calls or text mes­sages on this yes­ter­day.

Fyz­abad had four ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est last month, but it could not be con­firmed yes­ter­day if this re­mained the same. There had ini­tial­ly been ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from at least two peo­ple for Ca­roni East, of­fi­cials there said, but noth­ing was con­firmed. Up to yes­ter­day, there have been two ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est for St Au­gus­tine.

The Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has not named a date for its screen­ing ex­er­cise to start. UNC of­fi­cials, who said this would be like­ly in Sep­tem­ber or at the end of the month, al­so said the par­ty would be ob­serv­ing to see the type of nom­i­nees the PNM pro­duced for the nine UNC-held con­stituen­cies.

“It doesn’t mat­ter who they (PNM) put in UNC ar­eas; there’s one gen­er­al elec­tion out­come for PNM—that’s de­feat over­all,” UNC sources said.

The UNC’s bud­get con­sul­ta­tions con­tin­ued last night in Pointe-a-Pierre and will con­tin­ue un­til Au­gust 21 in Siparia, when UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is MP for that area, is ex­pect­ed to host the fi­nal con­sul­ta­tion.