Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior po­lit­i­cal re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Mara­bel­la West coun­cil­lor John Michael Al­i­bo­cus will to­day sub­mit his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers seek­ing to con­test San Fer­nan­do West for the Op­po­si­tion in next year’s gen­er­al elec­tions.

That seat is cur­rent­ly held by the Peo­ple’s na­tion­al Move­ment’s Faris Al-Rawi.

“They once said that I couldn’t win Mara­bel­la West and now I’m the coun­cil­lor. So, in the same way I made his­to­ry win­ning Mara­bel­la West for UNC, I’m con­fi­dent I can bring home San Fer­nan­do West for UNC,” Al­i­bo­cus said yes­ter­day, as he pre­pared for to­day’s trip to UNC’s head of­fice in Ch­agua­nas to sub­mit the nom­i­na­tion.

En­ter­tain­er/busi­ness­man Al­i­bo­cus (aka “Makamil­lion, the Great White”) is among UNC mem­bers sub­mit­ting nom­i­na­tions on the par­ty’s home stretch to the nom­i­na­tion dead­line on Thurs­day. Al­so ex­pect­ed to sub­mit a nom­i­na­tion for SF West is Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al.

Some 200-plus nom­i­na­tion forms have been sought since last De­cem­ber when nom­i­na­tions opened. Most in­cum­bent MPs have and are sub­mit­ting nom­i­na­tions. There are re­port­ed­ly mul­ti­ple nom­i­nees for UNC-held seats.

De­spite a rift with the lead­er­ship, MPs Rush­ton Paray (Ma­yaro) and sup­port­er Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne (Tabaquite) are ex­pect­ed to file nom­i­na­tions. Dr Rai Rag­bir (Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la) will sub­mit his on Thurs­day. Rod­ney Charles (Na­pari­ma) isn’t con­test­ing, since he said he’ll be out of ac­tive pol­i­tics af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion. Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly (Ch­agua­nas West) is al­so ex­pect­ed not to seek nom­i­na­tion.

Ram­bal­ly, le­gal ad­vis­er to the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), has had is­sues with the lead­er­ship and deputy leader on SDMS is­sues.

The UNC has on­ly won the SF West seat in 2000 gen­er­al elec­tion with Sadiq Baksh. He lost it in the 2002 gen­er­al elec­tion to the PNM’s Di­ane Seuk­er­an. It was won by the NAR (1986) and COP (2010) but was won by the PNM in all oth­er elec­tions since 1956 and is now held by PNM’s Al-Rawi.

Al­i­bo­cus, who’s from San Fer­nan­do’s 100-year-old “Char­lies’ Black Pud­ding” fam­i­ly, said, “My dream was al­ways to be in pol­i­tics and be an MP. Grow­ing up in San Fer­nan­do West as a child of the ‘ground’, I re­mem­ber go­ing to school at Na­pari­ma Col­lege, play­ing foot­ball in Skin­ner Park with St Madeleine Strik­ers and the Old Boys’, bas­ket­ball with the Carl­ton Lane team. San Fer­nan­do’s where my heart is. I’d like the op­por­tu­ni­ty to give back my sup­port to San Fer­nan­do West.”

Al­i­bo­cus, 40, who’s been net­work­ing SF West al­ready, added, “I want to bring back the love in­to com­mu­ni­ties, hope for the youths, show­ing them that we can do it and achieve any­thing with fo­cus and work to­wards. My fo­cus is the youths and how we might de­vel­op the ar­eas, give more jobs, de­ter­ring peo­ple from crime and be­ing mis­led.”

He added, “Be­ing a T&T am­bas­sador in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, I’ve al­ways been a pop­u­lar fig­ure to youths. My en­try is to seek to raise the pol­i­tics to a dif­fer­ent lev­el and bring in the youths who want a voice and a pos­i­tive fu­ture. I feel peo­ple 18 to 40 will be the fo­cus in this elec­tion. God is al­ways in con­trol of your des­tiny no mat­ter what - you just have to be­lieve in your­self, have faith and He’ll clear your path to suc­cess.”