Casan­dra Thomp­son-Forbes

The PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil has re­ceived con­sent let­ters from sev­en in­di­vid­u­als who would like to rep­re­sent the par­ty at the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

To­ba­go is di­vid­ed in­to two con­stituen­cies - To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West.

Speak­ing at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine said they have re­ceived five con­sent let­ters from those in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing the To­ba­go East seat and two for To­ba­go West.

“Those per­sons who wish to rep­re­sent the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment for To­ba­go East are so far the in­cum­bent Ayan­na Web­ster- Roy, we have Juli­et Pope, Crys­tal Ed­wards, Bri­an Nurse and al­so Dr Kern John­son. Those five have since sub­mit­ted their con­sent let­ters to be con­sid­ered in the screen­ing. For the West, we have in­cum­bent Sham­fa Cud­joe and we al­so have Al­lan Ex­tavour. Com­ing out from this, my own ob­ser­va­tion is that we have quite a lot of young peo­ple, who are com­ing for­ward to take up lead­er­ship roles with­in the PNM, who are com­ing for­ward to take up lead­er­ship roles in the pol­i­tics and for me this augers well for the con­ti­nu­ity of the par­ty go­ing for­ward,” she said.

David­son-Ce­les­tine said she was con­fi­dent that the PNM would re­tain both To­ba­go seats in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

She said To­ba­go has de­vel­oped sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the last five years.

“All through­out To­ba­go East we can see de­vel­op­ment, of course, fa­cil­i­tat­ed and led by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, so we are very con­fi­dent in re­tain­ing the To­ba­go East seat, and more so the To­ba­go West. Our sys­tems are in place, we have a very, very, or­ga­nized elec­tion ma­chin­ery. The par­ty is 65 years or so in ex­is­tence and our peo­ple ral­ly to­geth­er through thick or thin,” she said.

Mean­while, Chair­man Stan­ford Cal­len­der said he was com­fort­able with the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of both To­ba­go East and West MPs Ayan­na Web­ster- Roy and Sham­fa Cud­joe.

He said they did well over the past five years.

“I’m con­vinced that these two rep­re­sen­ta­tives that we have were care­ful­ly se­lect­ed the last time around. They have done well un­der the cir­cum­stances. They have made a tremen­dous sac­ri­fice to­wards the de­vel­op­ment of the is­land and the na­tion and I have ab­solute­ly no doubt in my mind, once the par­ty groups and the youth leagues who have the say, pri­or to the screen­ing com­mit­tee of this par­ty, ‘cause the screen­ing com­mit­tee is the com­mit­tee that will make the fi­nal de­ci­sion. Once they are se­lect­ed they would again re­tain the seats of To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West,” he said.

He al­so on called on mem­bers of the par­ty to put their dif­fer­ences aside and fo­cus on win­ning the up­com­ing elec­tions.

“As we pre­pare to roll out our 2020 elec­tions cam­paign, we are mind­ful that short­ly there­after, is the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, so in To­ba­go this par­ty is in full elec­tion mode and there­fore, I just make the gen­er­al ap­peal to our mem­ber­ship. The time has come for us to do what we do best, which is to come to­geth­er, in the in­ter­est not on­ly in this par­ty, but of this is­land and this coun­try, so as the process rolls out we will con­tin­ue to keep the mem­bers up­dat­ed and the pub­lic,” he said.

Cal­len­der said, the screen­ing process will be com­plet­ed by May 30.