The PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil has wast­ed no time get­ting bat­tle-ready for the next To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion—screen­ing 17 nom­i­nees and con­firm­ing sev­en can­di­dates in one night.

Po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis said the process at John Di­al Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Wednes­day evening ran smooth­ly, and the cal­i­bre of ap­pli­cants left him high­ly im­pressed.

“We screened and we con­firmed sev­en can­di­dates in sev­en of the elec­toral dis­tricts. Screened a to­tal of about 17 nom­i­nees across those sev­en dis­tricts, and I’m quite hap­py and sat­is­fied with the qual­i­ty of the can­di­dates, es­pe­cial­ly some very vi­brant and ser­vice-ori­ent­ed young peo­ple,” Den­nis said.

He said the turnout—in­clud­ed fa­mil­iar names and new­com­ers—showed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment re­mains an at­trac­tive choice for To­bag­o­ni­ans ea­ger to serve.

“It says to me that per­sons like that—and young per­sons es­pe­cial­ly—are quite in­ter­est­ed in serv­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go, and by ex­ten­sion, in the progress and de­vel­op­ment of the is­land,” he said.

The sev­en dis­tricts screened on Sun­day are all in To­ba­go West. The par­ty re­sumes screen­ing next week for an­oth­er sev­en dis­tricts—five in To­ba­go East, one in cen­tral To­ba­go (Scar­bor­ough/Mt Grace), and one in To­ba­go West (Black Rock/Whim/Spring Gar­den).

Den­nis, who was al­so nom­i­nat­ed, con­firmed he is one of the sev­en se­lect­ed.

He added that no of­fi­cial can­di­date list will be made pub­lic un­til all 15 dis­tricts are screened.

While the PNM be­gan the process ear­li­er than usu­al, Den­nis said this was not a po­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy—but a nec­es­sary move to re­con­nect with the peo­ple of To­ba­go who felt left be­hind.

“We be­lieve that many per­sons in To­ba­go are suf­fer­ing at the hands of this cur­rent THA ad­min­is­tra­tion. We felt it nec­es­sary to start ear­ly so we can have mean­ing­ful in­ter­ac­tions with peo­ple across all 15 elec­toral dis­tricts,” Den­nis said.

“It’s not just about ask­ing for a vote,” he added. “We will en­sure that our can­di­dates are of ser­vice to the peo­ple of To­ba­go, even be­fore they hope­ful­ly get in­to of­fice.”

The term of the THA ex­pires on De­cem­ber 6. The elec­tion will be held with­in 90 days.