SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

For­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte strong­ly be­lieves his re­cent res­ig­na­tion from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s ad­min­is­tra­tion is the rea­son why he was re­ject­ed by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to con­test the La Brea seat in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

As a re­sult of the re­jec­tion, Le Hunte has asked the La Brea con­stituen­cy and ex­ec­u­tive to throw their sup­port be­hind an­oth­er nom­i­nee.

“Based on feed­back re­ceived from mem­bers who were there (screen­ing) and the ex­ec­u­tive I think my ac­tions of of­fer­ing my res­ig­na­tion had a sig­nif­i­cant part to play in me be­ing not ac­cept­ed as a can­di­date. I think that is a fair as­sess­ment,” Le Hunte told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view.

He was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion if he felt he was side­lined by the screen­ing com­mit­tee for sev­er­ing his ties from Cab­i­net.

On May 16, Le Hunte re­signed be­cause of “pro­fes­sion­al con­flict on pol­i­cy po­si­tion.”

Le Hunte said he of­fered to step down as the con­stituen­cy’s top choice af­ter the par­ty’s screen­ing com­mit­tee on Sat­ur­day in­struct­ed the La Brea ex­ec­u­tive to widen its scope of po­ten­tial can­di­dates yet again.

In­cum­bent La Brea MP Nicole Olivierre and Le Hunte were re­ject­ed fol­low­ing screen­ing last month.

A pool of 13 nom­i­nees faced the screen­ing com­mit­tee on Sat­ur­day but no one was se­lect­ed.

The ex­ec­u­tive has to hunt for an­oth­er batch of nom­i­nees with screen­ing to take place on June 20.

De­spite re­ceiv­ing over­whelm­ing sup­port from the con­stituen­cy, Le Hunte has giv­en up.

“I have reached the end of my jour­ney as a nom­i­nee for La Brea. I would think that all doors are now rel­a­tive­ly shut on that. The screen­ing com­mit­tee has demon­strat­ed clear­ly, in my mind, that they would like to see an­oth­er can­di­date for La Brea.”

He con­ced­ed he was not the nom­i­nee the com­mit­tee want­ed.

Tak­ing the fa­mous catch­phrase from Amer­i­ca’s for­mer First La­dy Michelle Oba­ma, Le Hunte said “when they go low, you go high.”

Le Hunte com­mend­ed the con­stituen­cy for their con­tin­ued con­fi­dence in him, urg­ing them and the bat­tle scarred ex­ec­u­tive “to move on” and fo­cus on an­oth­er nom­i­nee.

“When I en­tered the screen­ing process I un­der­stood the rules of the game, and there­fore, the ul­ti­mate de­ci­sion rests on the screen­ing com­mit­tee to de­cide. If that is their de­ci­sion. That is fine.”

He be­lieves when one door clos­es, an­oth­er opens.

Asked if he was giv­ing up the fight with a heavy heart, Le Hunte said no.

“My heavy heart is that I would not be able to serve the peo­ple of La Brea. I will not now be in a po­si­tion to do that. For that, I am a lit­tle bit dis­ap­point­ed...dis­ap­point­ed not be­cause I was not se­lect­ed as the can­di­date but dis­ap­point­ed not to rep­re­sent the peo­ple who en­dorsed me. I want­ed to be the flag bear­er of the par­ty.”

“If there are now dif­fer­ent views on that, I have no prob­lem in step­ping back and al­low­ing the par­ty to do what they feel they need to do, The de­ci­sion of me be­ing a can­di­date has been made. I think the par­ty has sig­nalled clear­ly they don’t want me to be a can­di­date.”

Le Hunte said he did not en­ter pol­i­tics to hold of­fice and he has demon­strat­ed so with his re­cent ac­tions.

“I have demon­strat­ed by my ac­tions that I am not a per­son that is a lover of of­fice. It was not about of­fice, as you have seen. I could give up of­fice based on my past de­ci­sions.”

He promised to work with who­ev­er is se­lect­ed to bring home the seat for the PNM in the up­com­ing polls.

Le Hunte said it was not un­com­mon for the screen­ing com­mit­tee to ask the ex­ec­u­tive to look for a wider cross sec­tion of peo­ple if they were dis­sat­is­fied with who was screened.

Pressed if he was dis­en­chant­ed by the turn of events, Le Hunte said he of­fered him­self know­ing ful­ly well of the process which has tak­en its course.

How­ev­er, as the par­ty’s vice chair­man, Le Hunte said he would con­tin­ue to be a mem­ber of the PNM.

“ I am still a mem­ber of the PNM fam­i­ly. I am def­i­nite­ly not go­ing to leave the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment....I’m not leav­ing the par­ty to join any oth­er par­ty....that is for sure. I re­main com­mit­ted to the par­ty for the past 31 years.”

Le Hunte said he has al­ways demon­strat­ed that “what you say you must be.”

As pro­fes­sion­als, Le Hunte said, peo­ple could dis­agree “but not nec­es­sar­i­ly be dis­agree­able. You could dis­agree on a point but it does not mean you have to dis­agree on every­thing.”

Since of­fer­ing his res­ig­na­tion, Le Hunte said he has not bad-talked the PNM.

“I con­tin­ue to be a loy­al sup­port­er of my par­ty and Gov­ern­ment and I will not say any­thing neg­a­tive about them. I re­fused to get in­to the mud­sling­ing and go­ing against my in­tegri­ty,” he added.

Com­ing from the bank­ing sec­tor, Le Hunte said he would con­tin­ue to ex­plore sev­er­al op­tions that are avail­able to him.