Gail Alexan­der

There are un­of­fi­cial re­ports from with­in the PNM that Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters has “got­ten through” for the Moru­ga/Table­land con­stituen­cy. How­ev­er, the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment is ex­pect­ed on that and oth­er nom­i­na­tions soon.

Mean­while, for­mer min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte will be screened for the La Brea seat next week.

Pe­ters was screened by PNM for Moru­ga/Table­land on Thurs­day.

In that day’s screen­ing of oth­er con­stituen­cies, re­tired po­lice in­spec­tor Michael Seales was among two oth­ers screened for Cou­va North.

Yes­ter­day Pe­ters, Moru­ga’s sole nom­i­nee, said, “I’m hope­ful...“

He’s ex­pect­ed to be in Moru­ga to­day. Pe­ters was rec­om­mend­ed by Moru­ga’s ex­ec­u­tive af­ter PNM’s screen­ing team ve­toed five oth­er pre­vi­ous nom­i­nees in­clud­ing in­cum­bent Lovell Fran­cis.

While word‘s still ahead on where Seales may be placed, Cou­va North or else­where, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands at­tor­ney Solange de Souza was suc­cess­ful in get­ting the Fyz­abad seat. A Fyz­abad nom­i­nee is al­so be­ing shift­ed to Siparia.

PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­ming said last night that the de­ci­sion hadn’t been fi­nalised re­gard­ing Thurs­day’s ex­er­cis­es, but one would be an­nounced soon.

Mean­while, for­mer Min­is­ter Le Hunte was for­mal­ly rec­om­mend­ed yes­ter­day to the PNM as La Brea’s nom­i­nee. La Brea’s ex­ec­u­tive sent the re­sults of this week’s par­ty group and ex­ec­u­tive vot­ing to Bal­isi­er House.

Of­fi­cials said this showed La Brea-born Le Hunte re­ceived sup­port from 13 of the 16 par­ty groups and 20 ex­ec­u­tive votes. In­cum­bent Nicole Ol­livierre re­ceived three-par­ty group votes and two ex­ec­u­tive votes. La Brea of­fi­cials said re­sults showed Le Hunte got the ma­jor­i­ty of sup­port and had the con­stituen­cy’s back­ing.

Ol­livierre didn’t an­swer calls. Le Hunte said he’s hap­py “for the over­whelm­ing sup­port”.

On his can­di­da­cy chances af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cept­ed his res­ig­na­tion - which con­cerned a plan for 24-hour wa­ter in T&T - Le Hunte said res­ig­na­tion and nom­i­na­tion were two sep­a­rate is­sues, “I con­tin­ue to be PNM and want to serve and unite La Brea. My res­ig­na­tion was of­fered based on a prin­ci­pled po­si­tion. I have no prob­lem with the Prime min­is­ter or PNM,” he said.

Nigel de Fre­itas tipped for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral

Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral of­fi­cials said Sen­ate vice-pres­i­dent Nigel de Fre­itas who got the ma­jor­i­ty of par­ty group and ex­ec­u­tive sup­port was rec­om­mend­ed out of the four nom­i­nees who sought the nom­i­na­tion.

That seat is cur­rent­ly oc­cu­pied by the PNM's Dar­ryl Smith.

De Fre­itas got sup­port from 13 ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and the ma­jor­i­ty of par­ty groups.

Diego Mar­tin Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­man Si­mon de No­bre­ga got eight ex­ec­u­tive votes and Ter­rence See­baran and Michelle Ben­jamin of Diego Mar­tin, one each.

Ari­ma of­fi­cials said eight par­ty groups nom­i­nat­ed in­cum­bent An­tho­ny Gar­cia. For­mer MP Pen­ny Beck­les-Robin­son got six nom­i­na­tions and Dr Hillary Bernard, two.

To­co San­gre Grande's six nom­i­nees were sub­mit­ted to Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day. Nom­i­nees are MP Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith, al­der­man Roger Munroe, crick­et star Mervyn Dil­lon, re­tired of­fi­cer David Guy, at­tor­ney Lor­raine Heath and pas­tor Court­ney Fran­cois.

Port-of-Spain South chair­man Wen­dell Stephens is seek­ing the nom­i­na­tion for that con­stituen­cy.

Oth­er names heard are sports­woman Cleopa­tra Bor­rel. PNM of­fi­cials pro­ject­ed a “sig­nif­i­cant“ name to re­place out­go­ing MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald who’s on cor­rup­tion charges.

To­ba­go East nom­i­nees are in­cum­bent Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, train­ing spe­cial­ist Juli­ette Hope, en­vi­ron­men­tal of­fi­cer Crys­tal Ed­wards, vet­eri­nar­i­an Dr Kern John­son, teacher Bri­an Nurse.

To­ba­go West nom­i­nees are in­cum­bent Sham­fa Cud­joe, pi­lot Lyn­don Vic­tor.

Lopinot Bon Air nom­i­nees vy­ing to re­place out­go­ing MP Cher­rie Ann Crichlow Cock­burn were ex­pect­ed to in­clude for­mer PNM sen­a­tor Al­isha Ro­mano, Ali­cia Hospedales, a con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial and a for­mer coun­cil­lor.

D’Abadie O’Meara’s nom­i­nees are MP An­cil An­toine and Ave­lene Scott. Ma­yaro nom­i­nees were An­to­nio Ross and Bun­ny Ma­habirs­ingh. PNM’s fi­nal screen­ings are next Tues­day and Thurs­day.