AKASH SAMA­ROO

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Sec­ondary school teacher Lisa At­wa­ter is the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s pick to con­test the Moru­ga/Table­land con­stituen­cy in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions, a seat the rul­ing par­ty des­per­ate­ly wants to wres­tle away from the con­trol of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

The cur­rent MP is the UNC’s Michelle Ben­jamin.

At­wa­ter was cho­sen yes­ter­day evening af­ter fac­ing the par­ty’s screen­ing com­mit­tee at Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain.

She was one of sev­er­al peo­ple con­sid­ered for the seat that an­a­lysts have pro­ject­ed to be one of the mar­gin­als in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

At­wa­ter, who is the Dean of Dis­ci­pline at the Moru­ga Sec­ondary School, came to the PNM’s head­quar­ters with the biggest en­tourage of any of the po­ten­tial can­di­dates. Sup­port­ers came with ban­ners and red t-shirts with her name em­bla­zoned on them.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress won the seat in 2020 with a mar­gin of 1,072 votes.

The PNM se­cured vic­to­ry in the Lengua/In­di­an Walk dis­trict of the con­stituen­cy in the last Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion.

The oth­er con­stituen­cies which can­di­dates were screened for last evening were Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and Fyz­abad. Both are al­so held cur­rent­ly by the UNC.