KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nan­cial ad­vis­er Do­minic Ro­main has been cho­sen as the new Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date to rep­re­sent the Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca (for­mer­ly D’Abadie/O’Meara) con­stituen­cy, a po­si­tion that be­came va­cant fol­low­ing the trag­ic death of for­mer MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian last month.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian died along with two of her chil­dren in a trag­ic house fire on De­cem­ber 16.

Ro­main was cho­sen over six oth­er nom­i­nees, in­clud­ing Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s mentee Cal­vary coun­cil­lor Je­niece Scott, al­der­man Derek King, Ari­ma North­east coun­cil­lor Kim Gar­cia-John, at­tor­ney San­jiv Bood­hu, Brit­tany Pierre and Lu­anne Pam­phille, fol­low­ing a screen­ing process at the par­ty’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain last night.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s hus­band Daniel and one of her sis­ters were present to throw their sup­port be­hind the can­di­dates.

Af­ter the re­sults were an­nounced, Ro­main, 44, told Guardian Me­dia he was look­ing for­ward to work­ing as hard as Mor­ris-Ju­lian.

He said, “I am hum­bled that the par­ty ex­ec­u­tive would have re­posed its con­fi­dence in me, al­beit a bit­ter­sweet mo­ment giv­en the cir­cum­stances which would have led to this va­can­cy com­ing about. The for­mer MP and I were fair­ly good friends for the short pe­ri­od of time that we would have known each oth­er, and I on­ly hope that I would be able to pick up the man­tle that’s been left with her un­for­tu­nate pass­ing. I am go­ing to work as hard as I can and as hard as she would have done to make D’Abadie/O’Meara now Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca the con­stituen­cy that it tru­ly can be.”

Sev­er­al sup­port­ers told Guardian Me­dia it was a bit­ter­sweet mo­ment to wit­ness Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s seat be­ing screened again, since she is “ir­re­place­able.”

There was al­so a lot of anx­i­ety at the venue as the screen­ing com­mit­tee, head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, took over an hour to de­cide on the re­sults for this seat.

While many sup­port­ers ap­peared dis­ap­point­ed by the choice, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said af­ter­wards that they were sat­is­fied with Ro­main.

“They had a lot of nom­i­nees. There were sev­en peo­ple, so we nor­mal­ly would be very thor­ough in ques­tion­ing and talk­ing with peo­ple who are prospec­tive can­di­dates,” Row­ley said.

“There is a lot of en­thu­si­asm. It is a new­ly named seat and, of course, you know in our tragedy with Lisa, there are a lot of peo­ple who want­ed to take up the man­tle, so we were quite hap­py to have had them all and in the end, we got a very good choice and I think we are ready for vic­to­ry in that seat.”

Scot­land, Young back for PoS

In­cum­bent Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young and Port-of-South MP Kei­th Scot­land were al­so screened yes­ter­day, al­though they were un­con­test­ed in their seats.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Young said, “I am hap­py to be of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty once again to serve Trinidad and To­ba­go by the best con­stituen­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, and I look for­ward, with the sup­port of my con­stituen­cy, to serv­ing all of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go as we go for­ward to win the next gen­er­al elec­tion and to re­turn the PNM to pow­er and to gov­er­nance and one thing you can count on is we will give our best and we will al­ways do what is right for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I love you all.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to Young’s fa­ther, for­mer man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and coun­try head of Sco­tia­bank T&T Richard Young, who ex­pressed pride and joy in see­ing how far his son had reached in pol­i­tics.

He said, “This is the third time he’s be­ing screened. It is a sense of joy with par­ent­hood to see your chil­dren pro­gress­ing and do­ing well.”

Asked how he felt about Young be­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter-in-wait­ing, he said, “That’s a re­al­ly deep, deep one. It con­firms fo­cus, hard work and ded­i­ca­tion re­al­ly pays off in every­thing in life, not just in this.”

On if he ever imag­ined his son would be­come prime min­is­ter, he said, “Nev­er. I want­ed the man to be a top lawyer, and he was head­ing there and then Dr Row­ley called him.

“I told Dr Row­ley about 11 years ago, I said, ‘Doc, look af­ter the man for me’. He said, ‘Don’t wor­ry, don’t wor­ry’.”

Asked how he felt about his son’s race be­ing an is­sue for some peo­ple, he replied, “I think it’s un­for­tu­nate, but I don’t think it’s deep. When peo­ple re­flect and re­alise and think about it, they would re­alise this is what Trinidad and To­ba­go is all about.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, it hurts you a lit­tle bit to hear that, but you have to rise be­yond those things.”

Last night, Row­ley al­so con­firmed that the Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive was told to find more nom­i­nees to be screened, as nei­ther of the two prospec­tive can­di­dates were se­lect­ed.

The nom­i­nees were Ja­son Saun­ders and De­vi­ca Sookoo, daugh­ter of for­mer Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASTT) Dhano Sookoo. Sookoo was boot­ed out as pres­i­dent in 2021 af­ter serv­ing in the role for 13 years. Last year, Na­dia Ram­ta­hal-Singh was se­lect­ed for the con­stituen­cy but she had to bow out due to work com­mit­ments.

Along with Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, the fi­nal seats to be screened are Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin North/East and Diego Mar­tin West.