SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

More than three dozen po­lit­i­cal neo­phytes have been se­lect­ed to con­test the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), and the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) so far.

More new­com­ers will join the line-up when the PNM, UNC, NTA, Pa­tri­ot Front, All Peo­ple’s Par­ty, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots, New Na­tion­al Vi­sion and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty an­nounce their fi­nal slate of can­di­dates for the elec­tion show­down which is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due this year.

The bat­tle among the 37 first-time con­tenders– who in­clude doc­tors, lawyers, ed­u­ca­tors, an en­gi­neer, a mu­sic pro­duc­er, a firearms ex­pert, a lieu­tenant com­man­der, a for­mer top cop, a fi­nan­cial ad­vis­er, the son of a late gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, and busi­ness­men–is ex­pect­ed to be fierce when the elec­tion bell is rung.

Of the 37 fresh faces on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape, nine are fe­males while 28 are males.

A break­down showed the PNM has 20 first-time gen­er­al elec­tion chal­lengers–five fe­males and 15 males.

The NTA has 11 (eight males and three fe­males).

Of the eight can­di­dates an­nounced by the UNC, six (five males and one fe­male) are en­ter­ing their first gen­er­al elec­tion race.

Among the new­bies for the PNM are Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Richie Sookhai, a for­mer pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce who will square off with UNC’s in­cum­bent Van­dana Mo­hit for the Ch­agua­nas East seat.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Dr Muham­mad Yunus Ibrahim will al­so at­tempt to wrest the Barataria/San Juan con­stituen­cy from the UNC’s in­cum­bent, Sad­dam Ho­sein.

The PNM had to search for new can­di­dates for Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, Laven­tille West and D’Abadie/O’Meara which they won in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

In­cum­bent Laven­tille East Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce cit­ed per­son­al is­sues and did not of­fer him­self to be screened. Sev­er­al nom­i­nees came for­ward, but the par­ty se­lect­ed en­gi­neer Chris­t­ian Birch­wood to con­test this seat.

Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds who bowed out of the elec­tion race last No­vem­ber was re­placed by at­tor­ney Ka­reem Mar­celle.

On Mon­day, the PNM chose fi­nan­cial ad­vis­er and me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Do­minic Ro­main to con­test the D’Abadie/O’Meara con­stituen­cy which was held by Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian who died in a fire at her Ari­ma home on De­cem­ber 16.

Me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Hans des Vi­gnes has emerged as the front-run­ner for the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy cur­rent­ly held by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who stat­ed that he would not seek re-elec­tion.

In a sur­pris­ing twist, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne with­drew from the nom­i­na­tion process af­ter 12 par­ty groups sup­port­ed des Vi­gnes.

If des Vi­gnes is giv­en the nod, he will be the 21st new face in the PNM camp.

Among the PNM hope­fuls is Kheron Khan, the son of the late Franklin Khan who served as en­er­gy min­is­ter and par­ty chair­man for the PNM. Khan will try to bring home the Fyz­abad con­stituen­cy.

Screen­ing for the last four PNM seats–Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Diego Mar­tin West, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, and Diego Mar­tin North/East–is ex­pect­ed to be un­der­way in the com­ing days.

Be­fore the end of last year, the NTA led by Gary Grif­fith an­nounced 13 can­di­dates, com­pared to the eight con­tenders UNC’s leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has put for­ward to date since screen­ing be­gan on No­vem­ber 29, last year.

The UNC’s six first-time con­tenders in­clude at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge (To­co/San­gre Grande), Richard Smith (Arou­ca/Mal­oney) a for­mer cor­po­ral in the De­fence Force who has a cer­tifi­cate in crim­i­nol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, at­tor­ney De­vesh Ma­haraj (St Joseph), Dr Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj (Lopinot/Bon Air West) a spe­cial­ist in ob­stet­rics and gy­nae­col­o­gy, Dr Michael Dowlath for­mer prin­ci­pal of Na­pari­ma Col­lege and ed­u­ca­tor (San Fer­nan­do West), and John Micheal Al­i­bo­cas (San Fer­nan­do East) a UNC coun­cil­lor for San Fer­nan­do West, a pop­u­lar artiste and mu­sic pro­duc­er.

The UNC has screened can­di­dates for Na­pari­ma, Moru­ga/Table­land, St Au­gus­tine and Ch­agua­nas West but is yet to name their prospec­tive can­di­dates.

Last De­cem­ber, the UNC be­gan ef­forts to forge an al­liance with the Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty and promi­nent trade unions.

On team NTA, Grif­fith, a for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, will take on PNM’s Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and UNC’s Ma­haraj for the St Joseph con­stituen­cy.

This is the first time Grif­fith has thrown his hat in­to a gen­er­al elec­tion ring.

The NTA has al­so named Kevin Sar­ran, a med­ical doc­tor, busi­ness­man and so­cial me­dia in­flu­encer who will come up against PNM’s Faris Al-Rawi and UNC’s Dowlath for the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy.

For Tu­na­puna, the par­ty se­lect­ed Savi­ta Pierre, an ed­u­ca­tor.

For­mer uni­ver­si­ty tu­tor Jairz­in­ho Rigs­by who has a mas­ter’s in man­age­ment will con­test the Ari­ma seat. Rigs­by who fought in the 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions for Ari­ma North-East elec­toral dis­trict on a UNC tick­et was de­feat­ed.

Paul Daniel Na­hous, an NTA al­der­man at the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and firearms ex­pert, is aim­ing to take the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy from the PNM.

Last month, the NTA of­fered the Con­gress of the Peo­ple and Hon­est, Op­por­tu­ni­ty, Per­for­mance and Em­pow­er­ment (HOPE) a place in its po­lit­i­cal arrange­ment.

HOPE’s deputy leader Louis Lee Sing said the par­ty will con­test five seats.

On­ly last week, leader of Pa­tri­ot­ic Front Mick­ela Pan­day said screen­ing for her 41 can­di­dates was still on­go­ing.