Yvonne Webb

An im­promp­tu vis­it by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to Ian Ather­ly's restau­rant on Mon­day night is fu­elling spec­u­la­tion that he is be­ing tipped as May­or of San Fer­nan­do for a sec­ond time. Af­ter the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's 11 to three sweep­ing vic­to­ry in the lo­cal polls on Mon­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar caused her mo­tor­cade, from her Pe­nal con­stituen­cy of­fice to Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, to make a de­tour to Ather­ly's by The Park.

Ac­com­pa­nied by Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Per­sad-Bisses­sar took a mike from one of the mu­sic trucks and ad­dressed limers, thank­ing them for her gov­ern­ment's suc­cess. Ather­ly, a for­mer may­or of San Fer­nan­do, un­der the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), mount­ed the lo­cal gov­ern­ment plat­form dur­ing the re­cent cam­paign and en­dorsed the PP's ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Af­ter his de­c­la­ra­tion on Har­ris Prom­e­nade, he ac­tive­ly cam­paigned in Mara­bel­la and in San Fer­nan­do with the PP's suc­cess­ful can­di­dates. In an in­ter­view with the Guardian, Ather­ly said he was of­fered noth­ing. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar thanked him for the role he played in the PP win­ning the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, which moved from one to sev­en elec­toral dis­tricts. He said he would se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er any op­por­tu­ni­ty of­fered to serve the peo­ple.

Oth­er names, such as Dr Anirudh Ma­habir, for­mer head of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion Keiran Singh, for­mer deputy may­or of San Fer­nan­do Ra­bindra Moo­nan and even City Cor­po­ra­tion CEO Mar­lene Coudray have been put in the mix. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma said they had made no de­ci­sions as yet on the se­lec­tion of may­ors or chair­men to head the 11 cor­po­ra­tions now un­der their con­trol.