Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will con­clude its screen­ing of gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees—in­clud­ing Diego Mar­tin ar­eas—next Mon­day, and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) re­sumes screen­ing this week for ar­eas from Port-of-Spain to Tabaquite.

This was con­firmed by of­fi­cials from both par­ties.

The PNM, which has al­ready se­lect­ed 37 prospec­tive can­di­dates for T&T’s 41 con­stituen­cies, will screen nom­i­nees for the three Diego Mar­tin con­stituen­cies and for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la—its on­ly out­stand­ing ar­eas—on Feb­ru­ary 17 at its Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain.

The spot­light will be on Diego Mar­tin West and North East now held by in­cum­bents Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

On Jan­u­ary 3, Row­ley an­nounced he’d be re­sign­ing as Prime Min­is­ter and wouldn’t be con­test­ing the Diego Mar­tin West seat he’s held since 1991.

Nom­i­nees are me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Hans des Vi­gnes (16 par­ty groups), con­stituen­cy la­dy vice chair­man Yokym­ma Bethelmy (six par­ty groups), con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial Cur­tis Tou­s­saint (two), con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial Lese­di Fe­lix (one), An­na Suleiman (ze­ro).

At a re­cent con­stituen­cy func­tion, Row­ley said he was leav­ing T&T in good hands —nam­ing cer­tain PNM of­fi­cials and des Vi­gnes. At a func­tion last Fri­day, re­spond­ing to me­dia ques­tions on if he’d re­cuse him­self from PNM’s screen­ing team for the Diego Mar­tin West’s screen­ing, Row­ley de­fend­ed his en­dorse­ment of des Vi­gnes, say­ing he was a mem­ber of the par­ty group with a right to choose a nom­i­nee and opined the me­dia was try­ing to “make mis­chief.”

Im­bert is the sole Diego Mar­tin North East nom­i­nee sup­port­ed by all 17 par­ty groups and its Women and Youth Leagues, ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials re­it­er­at­ed yes­ter­day.

On Jan­u­ary 27, two days af­ter nom­i­na­tions closed, at­tor­ney Ray­don Dal­rym­ple Watts at­tempt­ed to sub­mit a let­ter seek­ing to be con­sid­ered for screen­ing but was told the dead­line had passed.

Last Sat­ur­day, some con­stituents told Guardian Me­dia they ful­ly sup­port­ed re­turn­ing Im­bert to the post.

In Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, the sole nom­i­nee is in­cum­bent MP Symon de No­bri­ga.

Al­so be­ing screened next Mon­day are two nom­i­nees for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la. Con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials said last Sun­day that the two nom­i­nees are UWI lec­tur­er Dr Vi­vian Alexan­der, a sta­tis­ti­cian, born and raised in the con­stituen­cy; and ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Gail Ann Per­rotte, who’s from Coryal in the con­stituen­cy.

UNC screens for

north, south seats

Mean­while, the UNC, which so far has se­lect­ed eight can­di­dates out of the 39 Trinidad ar­eas the par­ty will con­test, re­sumes screen­ing to­day.

Of­fi­cials said nom­i­nees are ex­pect­ed to be screened for Port-of-Spain North and South, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant and Laven­tille West and by Fri­day, Princes Town and Tabaquite.

Busi­ness­peo­ple and UNC ac­tivists are among nom­i­nees for the north­ern seats, sources said. Among those for Princes Town are in­cum­bent MP Bar­ry Padarath. Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Alleyene will be among Tabaquite nom­i­nees. Haynes-Al­leyne is the sec­ond MP from the group of five who sup­port­ed Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate in UNC’s 2024 ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.

The par­ty re­cent­ly screened Paray slate sup­port­er, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, for Ch­agua­nas West among sev­er­al oth­ers.

The UNC last month be­gan screen­ing for St Au­gus­tine, Moru­ga/Table­land and oth­er seats but no se­lec­tions have been an­nounced. The UNC’s an­nounced can­di­dates for San Fer­nan­do West; St Joseph; To­co/San­gre Grande; Ch­agua­nas East; Barataria/San Juan; Arou­ca/Lopinot, Trinci­ty/Mal­oney and San Fer­nan­do East.