Chester Sam­bra­no

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has picked Care Par­ent­ing ad­vo­cate Mar­sha Ri­ley-Walk­er to chal­lenge Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for his Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy seat in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

The an­nounce­ment was made last night by UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing a vir­tu­al po­lit­i­cal meet­ing.

Ad­dress­ing the meet­ing be­fore Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke, Ri­ley-Walk­er ac­cused Dr Row­ley of un­der­per­for­mance as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment in his five terms in of­fice.

“Five terms as the MP for Diego Mar­tin West and up the hill in Big Yard they saw wa­ter once, you know who was re­spon­si­ble for that, yes Dr Row­ley this one you could blame Kam­la for,” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion leader al­so re­vealed can­di­dates for the oth­er Dei­go Mar­tin seats as well as Port-of-Spain South, the seat held by Mar­lene Mc Don­ald and Port-of-Spain and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s con­stituen­cy.

The can­di­dates are, Cur­tis Orr; for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer for Port-of-Spain South, Dar­ren Gar­ner; Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, John Ri­car­do Laquis; Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Eli Za­k­our; Diego Mar­tin North East.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she hopes to fin­ish all screen­ing by next week.

Dur­ing the po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, the Op­po­si­tion leader al­so ques­tioned the Prime Min­is­ter as well as the Gov­ern­ment’s mo­tive be­hind its de­c­la­ra­tion that this coun­try is not bound by the Rio Treaty re­gard­ing sanc­tions placed on Venezuela and some of its gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Vice-Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez.

“This is like an act of ag­gres­sion, this is like provo­ca­tion...Are you pro­vok­ing a war with the Unit­ed States?”

She said if such a war would arise it would come in the form of sanc­tion from our “largest trad­ing part­ner.”

On a sep­a­rate mat­ter, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to say whether he re­cused him­self from the Cab­i­net when de­ci­sions were be­ing tak­en to take loans from a com­pa­ny, NCB Glob­al Fi­nance, in which his broth­er is re­port­ed­ly the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer.