Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

It may be dif­fi­cult for any oth­er UNC can­di­date to run in the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion be­cause Jack Warn­er al­ready has sup­port from 31 par­ty groups in the con­stituen­cy.UNC elec­tions of­fi­cer Ra­mona Ram­di­al con­firmed this in re­sponse to con­cerns that oth­er can­di­dates can­not be nom­i­nat­ed to con­test the seat be­cause the par­ty's con­sti­tu­tion says they must have sup­port from 12 of the con­stituen­cy's par­ty groups.

The Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy has 39 par­ty groups and Warn­er has al­ready in­di­cat­ed that 31 of these groups are loy­al to him.How­ev­er, Ram­di­al said be­cause of how the UNC's con­sti­tu­tion was struc­tured, it was pos­si­ble for a can­di­date to file nom­i­na­tion pa­pers once he or she pre­sent­ed 36 sig­na­tures from mem­bers of any 12 of the par­ty groups. She added that one par­ty group could nom­i­nate two can­di­dates once the par­ty group mem­bers pre­sent­ed sig­na­tures.

"De­spite Mr Warn­er's over­whelm­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty, once they can get sig­na­tures from 36 peo­ple from among 12 par­ty groups, they can file a nom­i­na­tion," Ram­di­al said."These sig­na­tures can come from any one of the par­ty's 39 par­ty groups."Asked whether this would af­fect the chances of an­oth­er can­di­date be­cause Warn­er had the sup­port of 31 par­ty groups, Ram­di­al said no.

"The con­sti­tu­tion does not spec­i­fy which par­ty groups should give sup­port, so this means that any can­di­date who wants to put in a nom­i­na­tion can do so," she added.Ram­di­al said peo­ple were con­tin­u­ing to file nom­i­na­tions at Rien­zi Com­plex but could not say how many had al­ready filed their pa­pers. A screen­ing com­mit­tee would eval­u­ate each can­di­date be­fore mak­ing a se­lec­tion.The T&T Guardian could not con­firm how many nom­i­na­tions have been filed, as UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Dave Nan­coo could not be reached for a com­ment.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the dead­line for nom­i­na­tions had not yet been an­nounced.UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day al­so said Warn­er's pop­u­lar­i­ty might not af­fect nom­i­na­tions for oth­er can­di­dates be­cause the process was based on the sig­na­tures of mem­bers and not on par­ty groups.The Ch­agua­nas West seat was left va­cant af­ter Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion last month.

On May 10, Speak­er Wade Mark de­clared the seat va­cant, not­ing the by-elec­tion must be held with­in a 90-day pe­ri­od, that is, on or be­fore Au­gust 10.On Tues­day, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) is­sued no­tices say­ing those wish­ing to vote in the by-elec­tion must reg­is­ter and ver­i­fy their reg­is­tra­tion sta­tus be­fore to­mor­row. Elec­tors would not be al­lowed to vote if they do not take steps to en­sure their names ap­pear on the list.

It al­so ad­vised that any­one who has been liv­ing or rent­ing for more than two months in the Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy is el­i­gi­ble to reg­is­ter as an elec­tor.It al­so said those who have moved out of Ch­agua­nas West but have not re-reg­is­tered in the new con­stituen­cy are al­so el­i­gi­ble to vote.