Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is to­day ex­pect­ed to com­plete its screen­ing ex­er­cise which be­gan last Au­gust—and the spot­light will be on Diego Mar­tin West nom­i­nees, Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert and two new nom­i­nees for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la.

Both the PNM and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress are do­ing gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nee screen­ing to­day, with the PNM com­plet­ing four fi­nal ar­eas. The PNM, which be­gan screen­ing nom­i­nees last Au­gust, has so far an­nounced 37 prospec­tive can­di­dates.

Screen­ing be­gins at PNM’s Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain head of­fice from 5 pm. It’s be­ing con­duct­ed by the nine-mem­ber screen­ing team head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Re­cent spot­light has been on Diego Mar­tin West now held by Row­ley, who said last month that he will be re­sign­ing as Prime Min­is­ter ahead and won’t be con­test­ing the seat.

Fron­trun­ner for the seat is me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Hans Des Vi­gnes, who is backed by 16 par­ty groups and the ex­ec­u­tive. Oth­er nom­i­nees are la­dy vice chair­man Yokym­ma Bethelmy (backed by six PGs), con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial Cur­tis Tou­s­saint (two PGs) and con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial Lese­di Fe­lix (one PG). An­na Suleima, who re­ceived no par­ty group back­ing, dropped out.

Row­ley, who re­cent­ly said he was leav­ing Diego Mar­tin West in good hands—nam­ing PNM of­fi­cials and Des Vi­gnes—sub­se­quent­ly rep­ri­mand­ed re­porters who’d asked if he’d re­cuse him­self from the screen­ing team, as his re­mark oc­curred be­fore Des Vi­gnes was screened.

Spot­light is al­so on Diego Mar­tin North East, where in­cum­bent MP Im­bert is the sole nom­i­nee, backed by the area’s 17 par­ty groups, the ex­ec­u­tive and its Women’s and Youth leagues. Last year, Im­bert sig­nalled his in­ter­est in con­test­ing for a “las lap” term.

But there’s been spec­u­la­tion af­ter cer­tain Face­book posts talked about “pres­sure to make changes” in some seats and con­tro­ver­sy over Im­bert’s eco­nom­ic man­age­ment and oth­er is­sues such as the Privy Coun­cil judg­ment in favour of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

How­ev­er, Diego Mar­tin North East of­fi­cials and con­stituents, up to yes­ter­day, staunch­ly backed Im­bert, who’s held that seat since 1991 when it was Diego Mar­tin East.

Af­ter Row­ley, who served since 1991, Im­bert is the longest-serv­ing MP in the PNM and the Par­lia­ment, which sup­port­ers say will make him vi­tal af­ter Row­ley’s ex­it, whether PNM en­ters gov­ern­ment or op­po­si­tion af­ter up­com­ing elec­tions.

Im­bert’s in­sti­tu­tion­al mem­o­ry and ex­pe­ri­ence span work­ing in both gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion. He has served in the PNM Gov­ern­ment for sev­er­al terms, in­clud­ing as leader of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (HoR); and in Op­po­si­tion from 1995-2001 and 2010-2015.

Among oth­er long-serv­ing cur­rent Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, PNM MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is be­gan as a sen­a­tor in 1992 and was elect­ed Arou­ca South MP in 1995. Pen­ne­lope Beck­les en­tered Par­lia­ment as an MP in 1995. UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­gan as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor in 1994 and en­tered the HoR as Siparia MP in 1995.

The sole nom­i­nee for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral is in­cum­bent MP Symon de No­bri­ga, who was elect­ed in 2020.

D’Abadie/O’Meara nom­i­nee for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la

Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la is re­turn­ing for screen­ing af­ter its ini­tial nom­i­nee dropped out in Jan­u­ary due to job time con­straints and a sec­ond nom­i­nee wasn’t ap­proved. There are now two—UWI lec­tur­er Dr Vi­vian Alexan­der, a sta­tis­ti­cian who has roots in the area, and at­tor­ney San­jeev Bood­hoo, who was among nom­i­nees for D’Abadie/O’Meara (now Mau­si­ca/Mal­abar) re­cent­ly. A fe­male ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty, who of­fi­cials said last week was among re­cent con­sid­er­a­tion for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, sub­se­quent­ly dropped out last week.

Bood­hoo had worked with late D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian. She and two of her chil­dren died in a De­cem­ber fire at their Ari­ma home. Bood­hoo was a fron­tun­ner for D’Abadie/O’Meara but talk show host Do­minic Ro­main was cho­sen there.

Cu­mu­to of­fi­cials said Bood­hoo has fam­i­ly roots in San­gre Grande and oth­er ar­eas and was a for­mer San­gre Grande Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent. Cu­mu­to/ Man­zanil­la’s ex­ec­u­tive in­ter­viewed both nom­i­nees last Wednes­day.

The PNM is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce its de­ci­sions af­ter screen­ing, which will make the par­ty elec­tion-ready with can­di­dates for all 41 con­stituen­cies.