Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray says the pos­i­tive re­cep­tion he has re­ceived over the years due to the qual­i­ty of his rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Ma­yaro, has con­tributed to the area be­ing viewed as a winnable seat for the UNC, and un­less there are core is­sues flagged by UNC, it would be counter-pro­duc­tive to in­ter­fere with a “win­ning for­mu­la.”

This af­ter last Sun­day’s UNC elec­tion plan­ning meet­ing, where it re­ceived re­ports from of­fi­cials co-or­di­nat­ing seats and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties.

The UNC sub­se­quent­ly stat­ed that it aims to win 25 con­stituen­cies in the com­ing elec­tion and is par­tic­u­lar­ly tar­get­ing ten vi­tal seats.

The par­ty is tar­get­ing San Fer­nan­do West, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Tu­na­puna, St Joseph, and To­co/San­gre Grande which are all held by the PNM and re­gard­ed as key mar­gin­als.

The UNC is al­so aim­ing to re­tain cer­tain seats it holds—Moru­ga/Table­land, Ma­yaro, Pointe-a-Pierre, Ch­agua­nas East and Barataria/San Juan.

The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) is al­so tar­get­ing the same ten seats.

It was con­firmed that MPs who were part of Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate for the UNC’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive polls—Rod­ney Charles, Dr Rai Rag­bir, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Ani­ta Haynes Al­leyne—were not in­vit­ed to Sun­day’s UNC plan­ning meet­ing.

Paray said, “While I wasn’t in­vit­ed to the plan­ning meet­ing last Sun­day, I re­main com­mit­ted to the par­ty’s ob­jec­tives and to win­ning the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.”

Re­spond­ing to queries on UNC’s fo­cus on Ma­yaro, Paray added, “My ded­i­ca­tion to the Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy has al­ways been un­wa­ver­ing, and I’ll con­tin­ue to sup­port the cam­paign in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty is most ben­e­fi­cial. It’s clear that the UNC recog­nis­es the sig­nif­i­cance of this con­stituen­cy, not just for the up­com­ing elec­tions but for the broad­er po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

“Ma­yaro holds a spe­cial place, and it’s es­sen­tial to fo­cus on this area. The fact that Ma­yaro is among the ten seats be­ing tar­get­ed un­der­scores its im­por­tance.”

Paray added, “I be­lieve the long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship I’ve cul­ti­vat­ed with the com­mu­ni­ty has played a role in the par­ty’s de­ci­sion to fo­cus on Ma­yaro. The pos­i­tive re­cep­tion I have re­ceived over the years due to the qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion com­bined with my team’s con­sis­tent ef­forts, has cer­tain­ly con­tributed to Ma­yaro be­ing viewed as a winnable seat for the UNC.”

With re­gards to the UNC’s chances of re­tain­ing Ma­yaro, Paray said, “I be­lieve they are strong, but as with any elec­tion, it will de­pend on can­di­date se­lec­tion. I have been screened by the peo­ple of Ma­yaro for al­most 10 years. Un­less there are core is­sues flagged by the UNC, it will be counter pro­duc­tive to in­ter­fere with a win­ning for­mu­la.”

“The ground­work has been laid, and with the right ap­proach, I am ab­solute­ly op­ti­mistic about our prospects in Ma­yaro.”

On whether his UP team’s ef­forts in the par­ty’s elec­tions, where his team un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed against the leader’s slate, had con­tributed to the UNC’s fo­cus on Ma­yaro, Paray added, “While I’m not privy to the par­ty spe­cif­ic de­tails in­ter­nal­ly, if there is an in­di­ca­tion that our (UP) ef­forts dur­ing the in­ter­nal elec­tion have made a ‘mark’ in de­ter­min­ing in­ter­nal as­sess­ments, then I see it as a re­flec­tion of our ded­i­ca­tion to a stronger UNC for a Stronger T&T.”

“The work of the UNC Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots speaks for it­self, and it’s grat­i­fy­ing to know that it res­onates with­in the par­ty’s strate­gic con­sid­er­a­tions as they move for­ward with their 2025 cam­paign.”