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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

PNM co-ordinator loses Grande but still gets aldermanship

by

Gail Alexander
2039 days ago
20191207

Al­though the PNM lost San­gre Grande in last Mon­day's Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, its Grande elec­tion co-or­di­na­tor In­dar Paras­ram has been cho­sen to be­come PNM's al­der­man in UNC-held Cou­va cor­po­ra­tion.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion Sat­ur­day as PNM and UNC be­gan se­lect­ing al­der­men for the sev­en cor­po­ra­tions. Both par­ties tied in elec­tions with sev­en each out of the 14 cor­po­ra­tions. PNM won 74 seats and UNC 65. UNC won the pop­u­lar vote in the vot­er turnout of 34.49 per cent.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion in­formed par­ties last Thurs­day of the num­ber of al­der­men as­signed to par­ties. This is worked out based on the pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion for­mu­la in the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act. But up to last Fri­day EBC hadn't pub­licly stat­ed any of­fi­cial list of the num­bers of al­der­men. Par­ties must sub­mit al­der­men's names to EBC by Wednes­day.

Al­der­men, may­ors and coun­cil­lors are ex­pect­ed to be sworn in by the end of next week. PNM last Fri­day can­celled planned swear­ing in of coun­cil­lors for a hand­ful of cor­po­ra­tions.

The PNM be­gan no­ti­fy­ing those cho­sen as al­der­men at the end of last week. PNM al­der­man Paras­ram (PNM's elec­tions of­fi­cer) was se­lect­ed by the par­ty to be­come PNM's lone al­der­man in the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro cor­po­ra­tion which UNC won, it was con­firmed.

He has nev­er served as an al­der­man in his ca­reer. Paras­ram's name was among 13 oth­ers which the PNM had sub­mit­ted to the EBC as al­der­man nom­i­nees for Cou­va.

Paras­ram (URP's pro­gramme di­rec­tor) un­suc­cess­ful­ly co-or­di­nat­ed San­gre Grande for PNM which UNC won. Both tied for that seat in the 2016 LG polls and it was heav­i­ly tar­get­ed by both in last Mon­day's poll. The largest del­e­ga­tion at PNM's No­vem­ber con­ven­tion came from San­gre Grande, PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma Lee Sing had said last week.

PNM NAMES

PNM sources are watch­ing cer­tain names for pos­si­ble al­der­man ap­point­ment in some ar­eas in­clud­ing:

•Cagney Cas­simire, Her­man Noel, Dave Maraj (ARI­MA).

•Joel Mar­tinez, Asha Per­manand, Wen­dell Stephens, Ak­il Durham (POS).

•Ju­nia Re­grel­lo, Abi­gail Cox (SAN FER­NAN­DO).

•An­tho­ny Roberts, Sharon Fe­lix, Sha­keer Ali (SAN JUAN/LAVEN­TILLE).

•Car­los Browne (CH­AGUA­NAS).

•Irene Hinds, Su­san Hong, Sigler Jack (DIEGO MAR­TIN).

•Arvind Moo­nan (MA­YARO/RIO CLARO).

•Don­ald De­noon, Saleema Thomas, Joanne Bowen-De­ly­cia, Leslie Chang Fong (POINT FORTIN).

•Oni­ka Haynes, Kwe­si Robin­son, Na­tal­ie Fi­garo, Clay­ton Black­man (TU­NA­PUNA/PI­AR­CO).

•Chris Enci­nas (SIPARIA).


Mean­while, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar meets Sun­day with MPs, Sen­a­tors and UNC's LG can­di­dates to dis­cuss al­der­man choic­es. The par­ty was as­signed 27 places for al­der­men. Par­ty of­fi­cials said the UNC will have a mix of new and ex­pe­ri­enced al­der­men. De­spite win­ning no seats in Diego Mar­tin, UNC will have an al­der­man in Diego Mar­tin for the first time since 2010.

UNC NAMES

UNC sources are watch­ing some names in cer­tain ar­eas:

•Ravi Rati­ram, Paras­ram Ra­moutar, Camille Elie-Govind (COU­VA/TABAQUITE /TAL­PARO).

•Ray­mond Co­zi­er, Ruth Ali-Mo­hammed, Vedaish Ma­haraj ( MA­YARO/RIO CLARO).

•Luke Ba­hadoors­ingh, In­dra Castil­lo (SAN FER­NAN­DO).

•Allen Sam­my, Mar­sha Khan, Sankar Per­sad (PE­NAL DEBE).

•Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh, Cha­nar­daye Ra­mad­hars­ingh (SIPARIA).

•Clifton de Coteau, Phillip Gon­za­les, Am­rith Bas­sarat (PRINCES TOWN)

•Dar­ren Ali, Su­san Hold­er (SAN­GRE GRANDE).

•Ke­van Gibbs, Yan­nic Leza­ma (TU­NA­PUNA/PI­AR­CO).

•Brent Hec­tor (DIEGO MAR­TIN).

•Maris­sa Ram­lo­gan, An­dell Paramsook, Mar­lon Milling­ton (CH­AGUA­NAS).

•Nazeemool Mo­hammed (SAN JUAN/LAVEN­TILLE).

•Shel­don Gar­cia (ARI­MA).

Last week the EBC sent to the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry a cor­rect­ed name for UNC's En­ter­prise North/Es­mer­al­da af­ter EBC ini­tial­ly sub­mit­ted an in­cor­rect name. UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Dave Tan­coo wrote EBC about it and re­ceived a re­ply that it was cor­rect­ed.

UNC chair­man Pe­ter Kan­hai told Guardian Me­dia that UNC will con­tin­ue meet­ings with EBC ahead and seek a post-mortem of the elec­tion since var­i­ous is­sues oc­curred be­fore, dur­ing and af­ter the elec­tion. "We hope to have these at­tend­ed be­fore gen­er­al elec­tions ahead."

He said no in­for­ma­tion was forth­com­ing on the sta­tus of spoiled bal­lots dis­cov­ered be­fore the poll and promised le­gal ad­vice hadn't been re­ceived from EBC yet. He al­so cit­ed vot­ing-day is­sues. PNM of­fi­cials said mi­nor is­sues were al­so dealt with that day. EBC CEO Fern Nar­cis-Scope had said Mon­day EBC at­tend­ed to all is­sues re­port­ed and there had been no cause to rep­ri­mand any par­ty.

Vas­ant sur­prised at re­sults, ad­mits Kam­la's stocks up

Both for­mer PP min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath and ex-PN­Mite Har­ry Ra­goo­nanan have not­ed that UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar's po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal has in­creased, and Bharath ad­mits he was sur­prised at the elec­tion re­sults.

Just be­fore elec­tions, Bharath said al­though the PNM hadn't per­formed well in Gov­ern­ment, "their mas­sive cam­paign would be more than suf­fi­cient to take them over the line,” and that PNM had drowned out UNC's cam­paign.

Last Fri­day, Bharath con­ced­ed, "The elec­tion reg­is­tered a protest vote against PNM and every­one in­clud­ing me was sur­prised that PNM hav­ing spent that amount of mon­ey, it didn't se­cure more ar­eas. PNM will be very dis­ap­point­ed af­ter spend­ing tens of mil­lions, mak­ing it a gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. The pop­u­la­tion be­lieved there's a big dis­con­nect be­tween PNM and Gov­ern­ment from the high mur­der rate to un­em­ploy­ment, the econ­o­my, etc.

"But I don't think it's cause for ma­jor ela­tion for UNC be­cause if this is—as they said—the worst PNM Gov­ern­ment, we'd have ex­pect­ed more from UNC which didn't make in­roads in the East-West Cor­ri­dor. You need that to win gen­er­al elec­tion so they shouldn't be­come over-con­fi­dent.

"How­ev­er, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar's po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal is bet­ter than it was pri­or to the elec­tion and it would be fool­hardy for any­one in the par­ty to try to dis­lodge her. Al­though this isn't a win, UNC im­proved their po­si­tion."

Bharath said he will con­tin­ue do­ing the work he has been do­ing on the ground, "I don't think ei­ther par­ty is of­fer­ing to serve the peo­ple the way peo­ple want, that's why gov­ern­ments are chang­ing every five years. If any­one in­vit­ed me to do a post mortem on the sit­u­a­tion, I'm will­ing, but I don't ex­pect it to hap­pen."

Ra­goo­nanan had said at Louis Lee Sing's PPM launch in No­vem­ber that all small­er par­ties and UNC should have joined un­der Bharath's lead­er­ship. Sat­ur­day, Ra­goo­nanan said, "PNM can't bring back their pop­u­lar­i­ty. They spent a lot and UNC didn't and UNC still won, mak­ing in­roads in PNM ar­eas. UNC has every­thing nec­es­sary to win but it needs to make it­self more at­trac­tive, change faces, etc.

"Any­one wish­ing to beat PNM has to unite and Vas­ant has a role to play. All small­er par­ties should try to get to­geth­er un­der UNC. While Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's po­lit­i­cal rat­ings have soared, it's whether she can take the rigours of a gen­er­al elec­tion. UNC's base isn't shift­ing but peo­ple in the cen­tre are seek­ing some­thing to give them hope." (Gail Alexan­der)


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