Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The PNM’s Barataria/San Juan con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive will to­day sub­mit the names of their four gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees to the par­ty. They in­clude Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent Dr Muhammed Yunus Ibrahim and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox.

In Moru­ga/Table­land, for­mer MP Dr Lovell Fran­cis was not among the four nom­i­nees in­ter­viewed by the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive on Tues­day. Fran­cis is in South Africa, where he is serv­ing as T&T’s High Com­mis­sion­er.

To­day is the dead­line for sub­mis­sion to the PNM of gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees for nine con­stituen­cies. In June, the par­ty’s lead­er­ship man­dat­ed con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials in those ar­eas, which are cur­rent­ly held by the Op­po­si­tion UNC, to sub­mit their gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees by to­day.

Among Barataria/San Juan nom­i­nees, Dr Ibrahim is the nephew of T&T’s first Sen­ate pres­i­dent un­der the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion, the late Dr Wahid Ali, who served from 1971–1986. He was a PNM mem­ber for sev­er­al years be­fore be­ing ap­point­ed a sen­a­tor in June 2021 and Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent in March 2022.

Born and raised in Port-of-Spain, Dr Ibrahim is a den­tal sur­geon and has been in­volved in the San Juan busi­ness land­scape since 2000. He says he has a deep love for that com­mu­ni­ty. In 2005, he opened the San Juan Den­tal Clin­ic and Im­plant Cen­tre. He has al­so been in­volved in San Juan as a for­mer di­rec­tor of op­er­a­tions at Ramish and Leela Su­per­mar­ket. A past pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion, Ibrahim is a de­vout Mus­lim and has served on the Cap­i­tal City Mosque’s board of di­rec­tors.

Cox first en­tered Par­lia­ment as PNM’s Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP, serv­ing from 2007 to 2010, and was re-elect­ed for a sec­ond term from 2010 to 2015. In 2019, she was ap­point­ed a sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Since 2020, she has held the port­fo­lio of So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter.

The oth­er Barataria/San Juan nom­i­nees are po­lice of­fi­cer Roger Mo­hammed and busi­ness­man Sher­iff Ali.

The four nom­i­nees in­ter­viewed by the Moru­ga/Table­land ex­ec­u­tive are busi­ness man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­al Kerneisha Prince-King, un­suc­cess­ful 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­date Em­manuel Pierre, ed­u­ca­tor Lisa At­wa­ter and ad­min­is­tra­tor Jian Gra­ham.

Sources said al­though for­mer MP Fran­cis had sup­port from some of­fi­cials and par­ty groups, and had ini­tial­ly ex­pressed will­ing­ness to be nom­i­nat­ed, he wasn’t part of Tues­day’s in­ter­views. His name wasn’t sub­mit­ted to the ex­ec­u­tive but of­fi­cials said par­ty groups have un­til 4 pm to­day to sub­mit a nom­i­na­tion for him.

The par­ty sources said Prince-King, who is from La Lune, re­ceived the ma­jor­i­ty of sup­port from the area’s 54 par­ty groups. She comes from a long­stand­ing fam­i­ly of agri­cul­tur­al­ists and holds Man­age­ment Stud­ies and Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion de­grees.

Prince-King served as a di­rec­tor at the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help and was al­so on the board of the Ex­port Cen­tres Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EC­CL) as a di­rec­tor and then deputy chair­man. She is the Women’s Min­istry di­rec­tor on the Barataria SDA Church board and worked with suc­cess­ful Lengua/In­di­an Walk can­di­date Aut­ley Granthume’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion cam­paign.

Par­ty of­fi­cials said de­spite Pierre’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion de­feat, he in­creased votes in sev­er­al polling di­vi­sions and has kept work­ing on the ground.

Oth­er ar­eas’ nom­i­nees

Ma­yaro’s con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, which met on Tues­day, is sub­mit­ting the nom­i­nees they re­ceived.

They are ac­coun­tant/au­di­tor Janes­sa Camp­bell, great-grand­daugh­ter of for­mer MP Vic­tor Camp­bell, at­tor­ney Asha Hard­eo-Dhan­pat, busi­ness­man Bun­ny Sankar Ma­habirs­ingh and busi­ness­man/oil­field ser­vices con­sul­tant An­to­nio Ross, son of the late for­mer sen­a­tor Ver­non Gilbert.

There were in­di­ca­tions that Ma­yaro’s Women’s League was meet­ing last night to con­sid­er an­oth­er in­di­vid­ual.

The Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la ex­ec­u­tive met on Tues­day and is sub­mit­ting two nom­i­nees—a com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ist and a fi­nan­cial ad­vis­er. A busi­ness­man who ini­tial­ly ex­pressed in­ter­est with­drew, of­fi­cials said.

Pointe-a-Pierre is sub­mit­ting four nom­i­nees, two sports­men, in­clud­ing a coach and track and field ath­lete, and busi­ness­men from the safe­ty in­dus­try and tourism sec­tor. The lat­ter is a for­mer Cou­va/Pt Lisas cham­ber pres­i­dent who is al­so the son of a for­mer promi­nent PNM of­fi­cial.

St Au­gus­tine has two nom­i­nees, Ca­roni East and Fyz­abad are said to have four and Ch­agua­nas East has one.

The par­ty’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil meets to­day. Mem­bers ex­pect dis­cus­sions to in­clude Sun­day’s spe­cial con­ven­tion on the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form re­port and pos­si­ble dates for nom­i­nee screen­ings, which are ex­pect­ed to be­gin lat­er this month and con­tin­ue in­to Sep­tem­ber.