Cur­tis Williams

cur­tis.williams@guardian.co.tt

Ca­roni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh’s an­nounce­ment that he is step­ping aside from the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions is the lat­est in an ex­ten­sive house clean­ing ex­er­cise by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress be­fore the event.

Nu­mer­ous UNC sources con­firm to Guardian Me­dia that the par­ty will be com­ing with fresh, younger faces that it hopes will put be­hind what some saw as a stum­bling block to elec­tabil­i­ty in the par­ty.

Dur­ing a vir­tu­al meet­ing on Thurs­day night, Gopeesingh fi­nal­ly an­nounced his po­si­tion.

“His­to­ry nev­er re­al­ly says good­bye, his­to­ry says see you lat­er. So I will see you lat­er, on the cam­paign trail as I lend my sup­port, ex­per­tise, ex­pe­ri­ence and skills to our dis­tin­guished po­lit­i­cal leader and her team and to all our can­di­dates,” he said.

“And then, God will­ing, I will see you all again, on the oth­er side of the elec­tions when we take back Gov­ern­ment and bring back hope and progress to this coun­try.”

Apart from Gopeesingh, al­most the en­tire old guard are go­ing, with Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan bow­ing out and Dr Bho­han­dranath Tewarie al­so ex­pect­ed to be out al­though he is be­ing screened for the seat. Gan­ga Singh al­so did not sign nom­i­na­tion pa­pers and said his de­ci­sion was based on the fact he and leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bissses­sar did not agree on a unit­ed ap­proach to tack­ling the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Singh said, “I made it ab­solute­ly clear that I am not con­test­ing be­cause from the time the leader took a po­si­tion of go­ing it alone and dis­mis­sive­ly re­ject­ed our pro­pos­als, I recog­nise that I could not con­test the seat. I be­lieve that his­to­ry has shown us that go­ing it alone is the wrong ap­proach as an ap­pro­pri­ate path­way to pow­er. I said don’t agree with that po­si­tion.”

Asked how he felt now that Dr Fuad Khan, who sup­port­ed his view, ap­peared to be in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing the San Juan-Barataria seat, Singh said, “That is a mat­ter for him.”

He said his­to­ry is re­plete with ex­am­ples and lega­cy of the op­po­si­tion un­able to win alone, say­ing the on­ly time that hap­pened was in 2000 when the par­ty was in gov­ern­ment.

UNC sources say Prakash Ra­mad­har is al­so out as the par­ty has made it clear it will be putting up its can­di­date in the St Agus­tine safe seat. Sen­a­tor Khadi­jah Ameen is ear­marked for the seat al­though there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty she could be sent to fight To­co-San­gre Grande. Ra­mad­har has not as yet been spo­ken to by Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the is­sue.

Par­ty sources say the UNC want­ed a younger more dy­nam­ic can­di­date over Tewarie. But Tewarie has in­sist­ed he is go­ing to be screened.

“I am be­ing screened and will await the out­come,” Tewarie told Guardian Me­dia.

Asked if he had heard the par­ty want­ed a younger can­di­date, he said, “That’s OK but I would not like to en­gage the mat­ter.”

Rod­ney Charles is al­so ex­pect­ed to bow out and is like­ly to re­turn to the UN should the UNC be vic­to­ri­ous in the elec­tions.

“The leader likes him and would want him on the team but the re­al­i­ty is that Rod­ney is get­ting on in age and he would pre­fer to re­turn to the work he start­ed in the UN. But hav­ing said that, if she in­sists she wants him to stay in Na­pari­ma he will be pre­pared to take one for the team,” a source told GML.

Reached yes­ter­day, Charles said he has been screened and is wait­ing on what­ev­er Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­cides.

“What­ev­er hap­pens I am 100 per cent UNC and com­mit­ted to the par­ty,” Charles said.

Al­so out Oropouche West MP Vidya Gayadeen-Gopeesingh, who in­sid­ers say has not made an im­pres­sion on the na­tion­al land­scape and will not con­test the safe seat.

The Cou­va North safe seat is al­so like­ly to have a new stan­dard bear­er, with in­sid­ers say­ing in­cum­bent Ra­mona Ram­di­al will not be se­lect­ed, al­though has signed nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.

Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la in­cum­bent Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein is al­so fac­ing a sim­i­lar fate. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, she said while she was screened she was not told if she was suc­cess­ful.

Asked how she felt about the screen­ing, Newal­lo-Ho­sein, “I think it went well. We had frank dis­cus­sions. You know I like frank dis­cus­sion. Some­times frank dis­cus­sions go well for some and not for oth­ers so we will see.”

Newal­lo-Ho­sein in­sist­ed she had done a lot of work in her con­stituen­cy but agreed that does not guar­an­tee a re­turn. She is fac­ing stiff com­pe­ti­tion from for­mer En­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine, Glen Ram, Mi­tra Ram­di­al and two oth­er ac­tivists.

The UNC’s screen­ing com­mit­tee in­cludes Per­sad-Bisses­sar, David Lee, Jear­lene John, Dave Tan­co and Pe­ter Kan­hai.