Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment al­der­man in the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Christo­pher Enci­nas, who re­ceived ma­jor­i­ty sup­port from the La Brea ex­ec­u­tive for can­di­da­cy, says he will re­sub­mit his nom­i­na­tion af­ter he fell ill and couldn’t be screened for the seat last Mon­day. And Enci­nas will be seek­ing can­di­da­cy against La Brea con­stituen­cy chair­man Jer­mel Pierre.

This was con­firmed yes­ter­day by par­ty of­fi­cials.

Pierre and for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­ber now PN­Mite, Tahar­qa Obi­ka, will be new nom­i­nees when La Brea sends back its nom­i­na­tions to the PNM by De­cem­ber 20.

La Brea was among the ar­eas whose nom­i­nees were screened by the par­ty’s screen­ing team last week. Enci­nas was one of three nom­i­nees ex­pect­ed to have been screened for the seat, af­ter he re­ceived the ma­jor­i­ty of sup­port from the ex­ec­u­tive.

Ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pierre had not sub­mit­ted a nom­i­na­tion then and had not been among ex­ec­u­tive sup­port for Enci­nas.

In­cum­bent MP Stephen McLashie and Brighton Ves­signy coun­cil­lor Jil­lon Lewis, who were al­so nom­i­nat­ed, re­ceived less sup­port from La Brea’s ex­ec­u­tive. McLashie and Lewis were screened last Mon­day but Enci­nas didn’t turn up for screen­ing.

The screen­ing team re­ject­ed McLashie, the in­cum­bent MP, and Lewis, send­ing the La Brea ex­ec­u­tive back to get more nom­i­nees.

Enci­nas yes­ter­day said he sent a sick leave cer­tifi­cate to the screen­ing team to con­firm his sit­u­a­tion. He said he would seek to be screened at the next ses­sion. Asked if he would be able to per­form the stren­u­ous du­ties of an MP and heav­ier work of a min­is­ter, Enci­nas said he was on the mend and his ill­ness wasn’t de­bil­i­tat­ing.

PNM La Brea of­fi­cials said Enci­nas will be renom­i­nat­ed as he wasn’t screened.

Af­ter La Brea was sent back, for­mer UNC of­fi­cial Obi­ka—who joined PNM in 2023—con­firmed he would of­fer him­self for nom­i­na­tion for the seat. Obi­ka, who has Point Fortin roots, was ap­point­ed a tem­po­rary PNM sen­a­tor three weeks ago.

Con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pierre, an in­ter­na­tion­al trade con­sul­tant, has re­ceived en­dorse­ment from for­mer MP Hed­widge Bereaux. Pierre said he wish­es Enci­nas speedy re­cov­ery. He not­ed Enci­nas had con­test­ed against him ear­li­er this year for chair­man­ship of the La Brea ex­ec­u­tive. Pierre had been vice chair­man.

Pierre has sup­port from about 10 par­ty groups so far and more are ex­pect­ed, he said.

Pierre, who had been PNM’s cam­paign man­ag­er for the 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions, grew up in La Brea. He holds po­lit­i­cal sci­ence and in­ter­na­tion­al trade de­grees and has been a PNM mem­ber for half his life. He’s served on the Youth League and says for­mer de­ceased MP Fitzger­ald Jef­fery was his men­tor.

For­mer Point Fortin May­or Ab­don Ma­son, who re­cent­ly sig­nalled in­ter­est in nom­i­na­tion for La Brea, said he now sup­ports Pierre.