Dar­ren Gar­ner, the UNC’s can­di­date for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West seat in the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, has with­drawn his can­di­da­cy in the up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions for the po­lit­i­cal par­ty, while re­stat­ing his sup­port for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, Gar­ner ex­plains that he had hoped to con­tent the post of Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer on the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar slate, but was not se­lect­ed, and in­di­cates he does not want to con­test as an in­de­pen­dent can­di­date.

He al­so reaf­firms his sup­port for the lead­er­ship of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the helm of the UNC, and pledges to con­tin­ue build­ing sup­port for the par­ty in the con­stituen­cies of Port of Spain North / St Ann’s West, and South Port of Spain, both of which he had con­test­ed for the UNC in pre­vi­ous elec­tions.

The full text of the state­ment from Dar­ren Gar­ner, fol­lows…

With­draw­al of can­di­da­cy for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress In­ter­nal Elec­tions

I am writ­ing this let­ter to in­form you of my de­ci­sion to with­draw my can­di­da­cy from the in­ter­nal elec­tion race. This de­ci­sion comes af­ter the an­nounce­ment of the in­cum­bent po­lit­i­cal leader’s slate for said elec­tions.

My im­pe­tus for sub­mit­ting my name was to be able to serve along­side the dis­tin­guished and ho­n­ourable leader Mrs. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.  Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I was not se­lect­ed to be on her slate and I would rather show my sup­port from the side than con­test as an in­de­pen­dent.

As men­tioned be­fore, I am for­mal­ly with­draw­ing my can­di­da­cy for the po­si­tion of Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress In­ter­nal Elec­tions to be held on De­cem­ber 6th.

I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful to the leader for plac­ing her faith in me on two oc­ca­sions in the form of can­di­da­cy at both the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions and Gen­er­al Elec­tions.  Her vi­sion­ary stance on giv­ing youth an op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve has brought about a surge in youth in­volve­ment in pol­i­tics.  As a young per­son hav­ing such grand am­bi­tion, sel­dom do you re­ceive such op­por­tu­ni­ties so ear­ly in life. It is for this rea­son, I pledge my sup­port to the Leader of our great par­ty and my will­ing­ness to as­sist in what­ev­er way pos­si­ble.

Like my­self, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fi­nan­cial mem­ber­ship of our great par­ty in both the Elec­toral Dis­trict of South­ern Port of Spain and the Con­stituen­cy of Port of Spain North / St. Ann’s West has pledged their sup­port to our leader Mrs. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Hav­ing served as the can­di­date for both ar­eas re­spec­tive­ly, de­spite be­ing un­suc­cess­ful at the polls, I am cur­rent­ly ded­i­cat­ed to both work­ing with and rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple in the ar­eas and in­creas­ing our par­ty’s mem­ber­ship.