Gail Alexan­der

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM’s) Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy is cur­rent­ly hus­tling to find new elec­tion nom­i­nees af­ter its rec­om­mend­ed nom­i­nee An­to­nio Ross – who’s over­seas - didn’t present him­self for screen­ing on Tues­day.

This was con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia by se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials af­ter Ma­yaro pre­sent­ed for screen­ing on Tues­day.

Ma­yaro’s ex­ec­u­tive had nom­i­nees Ross and Ma­yaro busi­ness­man Bun­ny Ma­habirs­ingh. Ross was rec­om­mend­ed by the ex­ec­u­tive for can­di­da­cy.

How­ev­er, it was con­firmed that Ross is in Texas.

With T&T’s closed bor­ders, he wasn’t able to re­turn for screen­ing.

It was ex­pect­ed Ross might have been screened via Zoom or sim­i­lar tech­nol­o­gy. But Ma­yaro of­fi­cials were told by the par­ty that he hadn’t pre­sent­ed him­self for screen­ing and was out. Ma­habirs­ingh wasn’t ac­cept­ed ei­ther, it was con­firmed. Ma­yaro was giv­en a week to re­turn with nom­i­nees.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed that Ross had ap­plied for an ex­emp­tion (from bor­der clo­sure) to re­turn home, but this wasn’t grant­ed yet.

The oth­er is­sue was that char­ter flights want­ed to be paid be­fore con­firm­ing a flight. Even if Ross re­turned by next week, it was not­ed that he’d have to self-quar­an­tine at least for two weeks. As a re­sult, sources ques­tioned why he couldn’t have been screened via Zoom or sim­i­lar tech­nol­o­gy. They said they not­ed re­ports that tech­nol­o­gy was used for some of the PNM’s first screen­ings.

While no names have so far arisen for Ma­yaro - and hope is still be­ing held for Ross to be screened - some mem­bers have con­tin­ued to eye top sports­woman Cleopa­tra Bor­rel, a name heard in re­cent months con­cern­ing that seat.

But of­fi­cials said they’d al­so not­ed her name was heard con­cern­ing oth­er ar­eas.

PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings was un­avail­able to com­ment on Ross’ sit­u­a­tion. An­oth­er par­ty of­fi­cial couldn’t say what might ap­ply with nom­i­nees who are over­seas.

Pen­ny over­seas too

The sit­u­a­tion with Ross and his in­abil­i­ty to present him­self for screen­ing has raised ques­tions about the screen­ing chances for Ari­ma nom­i­nee, for­mer area MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son.

She is T&T’s per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, based in New York.

Screen­ing of Ari­ma’s three nom­i­nees is next Mon­day.

PNM Ari­ma of­fi­cials couldn’t say what the de­vel­op­ment with the over­seas Ma­yaro nom­i­nee could mean for her screen­ing. They said the ex­ec­u­tive’s role goes on­ly as far as re­ceiv­ing nom­i­nees’ pre­sen­ta­tions.

Ari­ma’s nom­i­nees are in­cum­bent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment An­tho­ny Gar­cia, Dr Hillary Bernard and Beck­les-Robin­son. Bernard is sec­re­tary of the ex­ec­u­tive. Gar­cia re­cent­ly re­ceived ma­jor­i­ty ex­ec­u­tive back­ing for the can­di­da­cy. Bernard was next in line, and Beck­les-Robin­son, third.

Unit of­fi­cials ex­plained the ex­ec­u­tive had asked nom­i­nees for re­sumes and to do a two-minute video on them­selves.

Re­sumes were re­ceived from all.

Beck­les-Robin­son’s video was sent to the Youth League al­so.

On the ba­sis of in­for­ma­tion re­ceived, the unit made its rec­om­men­da­tion. A let­ter on this was sent on Mon­day to PNM’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary and leader.

They said it was up to can­di­dates to present them­selves for screen­ing. There was no dis­cus­sion with any nom­i­nee on how they would present them­selves, whether in per­son or whether via Zoom/oth­er tech­nol­o­gy. Of­fi­cials said nom­i­nees had to con­tact the par­ty on their pre­sen­ta­tion and the par­ty had to agree on the pre­sen­ta­tion.

Beck­les-Robin­son didn’t re­ply to query yes­ter­day on what arrange­ment was made for her screen­ing - whether by tech­nol­o­gy- and if the par­ty had agreed on this.

No Fuad screened

—PM, PNM

Fol­low­ing a claim car­ried by the Trinidad Ex­press yes­ter­day that Fuad Abu Abu Bakr, son of Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr, was be­ing screened for PNM’s Port-of-Spain South seat, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley asked rhetor­i­cal­ly at a news con­fer­ence, whom Bakr was screened by and for which par­ty he was con­test­ing.

The PNM had al­so ear­li­er is­sued a state­ment deny­ing Bakr was nom­i­nat­ed or be­ing screened for Port-of-Spain South.

Row­ley, who heads PNM’s screen­ing team, said he had a list of all who were be­ing screened yes­ter­day and didn’t see Bakr’s name on it.

“The news in T&T is very ex­cit­ing, you have to sieve it out,” Row­ley re­marked dry­ly.

Row­ley said the PNM wasn’t a “pick-up side” but said it was root­ed in a con­sti­tu­tion.

“To be screened you have to be a mem­ber. Even if you are (a mem­ber), you have to sub­mit con­sent (to be nom­i­nat­ed) to the par­ty by a par­tic­u­lar date. When that dead­line’s passed no one can come, un­less if the screen­ing team sends back for more nom­i­nees.”

He said if a con­sent let­ter wasn’t sub­mit­ted, par­ty groups wouldn’t be able to nom­i­nate a per­son and they wouldn’t be in­volved in the process.

“PNM has a process – you can’t just get a vaps to be screened by PNM.”