Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Ma­yaro con­stituents have re­port­ed­ly told in­cum­bent MP Rush­ton Paray that if he is not se­lect­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress to con­test the seat again, it will be “No Paray, no vote!”

The Ma­yaro MP on Wednes­day at­tend­ed a meet­ing with con­stituents who were anx­ious about his screen­ing.

Paray con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia. He at­tend­ed the first such meet­ing last week Tues­day, where he was in­vit­ed by some con­stituents from the elec­toral ar­eas of Ma­yaro North, Ma­yaro South and Co­cal Mafek­ing who voiced the same view.

Wednes­day’s sub­se­quent meet­ing was with Ec­clesville con­stituents who had al­so in­vit­ed him to meet them. So far, his meet­ings with con­stituents have cov­ered four of Ma­yaro’s sev­en elec­toral ar­eas. Paray has been in­vit­ed to an­oth­er meet­ing next week.

Paray said he had been in­vit­ed to the meet­ings by some con­stituents who are con­cerned about ru­mours that for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship en­er­gy min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine had been tipped for the seat.

Ram­nar­ine is un­der­stood to have shown in­ter­est in con­test­ing ei­ther Ma­yaro or Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la for the UNC.

Paray said con­stituen­cy ac­tivists called the meet­ing to get a clear pic­ture of his own in­ter­est in con­test­ing, “as there’s con­flict­ing in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main that I ‘have no in­ter­est to present my­self for screen­ing or be­com­ing a can­di­date’ and ob­vi­ous­ly the fact that Kevin’s name is be­ing ped­dled con­cerned them.”

Paray could not say if it was par­ty op­er­a­tors or “mau­vais langue” do­ing so, “but the in­for­ma­tion came to ac­tivists and they want­ed to know if I’m in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing and when I’d be screened.”

Last week Tues­day’s first meet­ing was 90 min­utes long at the Ma­yaro Civic Cen­tre. It in­volved UNC ground troops in the con­stituen­cy who man­age elec­tion day ma­chin­ery. Wednes­day’s Ec­clesville meet­ing was at an ac­tivist’s home, Paray said.

He said at both meet­ings, he tried to man­age at­ten­dees’ con­cerns and as­sured them he was not part­ing with the UNC in any way.

“I told them that as of to­day, I re­main solid­ly with the UNC and have every in­ten­tion to be screened and ex­pect­ed to be treat­ed fair­ly.

“I said I’m very much in­ter­est­ed in con­tin­u­ing ser­vice to the peo­ple. I’d paid my $1,000 re­quired by the par­ty to file my nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments since April 2024 and I in­tend to at­tend the screen­ing. I said I’m go­ing full speed ahead and I’m look­ing for their sup­port,” he said.

“They asked if I wasn’t se­lect­ed what I would do. I told them I hoped to be se­lect­ed and had worked hard for 10 years as MP for the con­stituen­cy and par­ty. I said my­self and oth­er MPs did noth­ing wrong last March when we called for UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­tions to be held as due. Nor did we do any­thing wrong in con­test­ing as the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate which I head­ed. We con­duct­ed a re­spectable cam­paign, lost, ac­cept­ed de­feat and moved on.”

Paray said ac­tivists, con­cerned about the lack of in­for­ma­tion about screen­ing for the Ma­yaro seat by the UNC, em­pha­sised to him they didn’t want any oth­er MP but him and chant­ed “No Paray, no vote!” Oth­ers said “No Paray, no UNC sup­port!”

Paray said he was aware that Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er al­so filed a nom­i­na­tion for the seat.

“But every oth­er name is spec­u­la­tion to me,” he said.

Asked by Guardian Me­dia what he would do if he was screened and not se­lect­ed, Paray briefly said, “If and when we reach that bridge, then we’ll cross it.”

UNC of­fi­cials couldn’t com­ment on the Ma­yaro de­vel­op­ment, though pic­tures of the meet­ings were seen on Paray’s Face­book page.

Of­fi­cials yes­ter­day said they ex­pect­ed screen­ing will re­sume soon and as­sured the process would be a fair one.

Paray, along with Dr Rai Rag­bir, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Rod­ney Charles, have been re­gard­ed as dis­si­dent MPs by the op­po­si­tion par­ty af­ter they called for the UNC’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions to be held, and spoke out about the di­rec­tion the par­ty has been head­ed.