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Monday, August 18, 2025

Dillon's candidacy under review by PNM

by

Shaliza Hassanali
1906 days ago
20200530

One day af­ter for­mer crick­eter Mervyn Dil­lon was se­lect­ed as the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­date for the To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy, the par­ty has put his can­di­da­cy un­der re­view.

Con­fir­ma­tion came from the par­ty's pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing on Sat­ur­day.

"I can con­firm it (can­di­da­cy) is un­der re­view," Lee Sing told Guardian Me­dia in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Asked when a fi­nal de­ci­sion would be an­nounced, she said "by Mon­day or Tues­day, we will be able to make a clear­er state­ment."

Asked what would have prompt­ed the re­view, Lee Sing did not say much.

"We will talk about that at a lat­er time," was her re­sponse.

At yes­ter­day's press con­fer­ence held by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's, Guardian Me­dia asked the PM to re­spond to re­ports that Dil­lon's can­di­da­cy was un­der re­view by the par­ty.

Row­ley side­stepped the is­sue.

"I am not dis­cussing PNM screen­ing here to­day. This is not the place and time for that. That process is still un­der­way. I say no more at this time."

The re­view came hours af­ter the con­stituen­cy's ex­ec­u­tives and par­ty groups raised an up­roar over Dil­lon's se­lec­tion.

Elec­tion of­fi­cer of the con­stituen­cy John Ma­son in a T&T Guardian ar­ti­cle on Sat­ur­day raised con­cerns about Dil­lon be­ing se­lect­ed, stat­ing that he was a "John­ny-Come-Late­ly" to the par­ty while peo­ple who worked the ground for the par­ty and had sub­mit­ted nom­i­na­tions were by­passed and over­looked by the screen­ing com­mit­tee.

Dis­turbed by the turn of events, John al­so threat­ened to walk from the PNM af­ter giv­ing 18 years of ser­vice, while PNM ac­tivist Dar­rel Dookoo took the par­ty to task for mak­ing bad de­ci­sions in the se­lec­tions of can­di­dates and warned that the To­co/San­gre Grande seat would go in­to the hands of the UNC if Dil­lon stays.

Dookoo called on Row­ley "to go" and urged PNM sup­port­ers to vote for the UNC at the up­com­ing polls.

Dil­lon's se­lec­tion had al­so caused a tsuna­mi of ob­jec­tions from die-hard sup­port­ers who were ral­ly­ing be­hind nom­i­nee Lor­raine Heath, who works at the Lands Set­tle­ment Agency as a cor­po­rate sec­re­tary.

One of sev­en nom­i­nees screened last Thurs­day, Dil­lon got the nod over Heath and in­cum­bent MP Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith who al­so took to her Face­book page on Fri­day af­ter be­ing re­ject­ed to tell those who sup­port­ed her that one man had planned a con­spir­a­cy to have her re­move as MP and her sto­ry will be told.

On Sat­ur­day, news of Dil­lon's se­lec­tion be­ing un­der re­view was met with smil­ing faces.

Ma­son said while he was hap­py that the par­ty was re­view­ing his se­lec­tion, he felt the PNM should stop wast­ing time and re­move Dil­lon.

"We are pleased they heard our cries. But Dil­lon's can­di­da­cy should not be un­der re­view, it should be re­scind­ed. I am ap­peal­ing to the par­ty to let good sense pre­vail. I don't want them to re­peat the er­rors they made in last De­cem­ber's lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions by putting up can­di­dates sup­port­ers did not want."

Ma­son said be­cause of bad judg­ment calls the PNM lost con­trol of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to the UNC by send­ing up can­di­dates that the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple did not want.

Ma­son said he had no prob­lem if the ex­ec­u­tive was in­struct­ed by the par­ty to hunt for new nom­i­nees.

"It's okay if we are told to look for more nom­i­nees. It's just we want a change. Give us a fight­ing chance," Ma­son said.

Mervyn Dillon


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