Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress on Tues­day screened sev­er­al peo­ple for the Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la seat, in­clud­ing for­mer Rio Claro/Ma­yaro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Glen Ram - who’s be­fore the courts on al­leged cor­rup­tion charges - and for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine.

This was con­firmed by UNC of­fi­cials yes­ter­day. The par­ty is al­so screen­ing nom­i­nees for sev­er­al oth­er seats, in­clud­ing To­co-San­gre Grande, St Au­gus­tine and Lopinot-Bon Air West.

UNC of­fi­cials said Cu­mu­to-Man­za­il­la nom­i­nees in­clud­ed Ram, Ram­nar­ine, in­cum­bent MP Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein, for­mer Co­coa/Cof­fee In­dus­try board mem­ber Mi­tra Ram­di­al, Asha Be­har­ry and Shiv­an Sam.

Ram yes­ter­day de­clined com­ment when asked about Tues­day’s screen­ing. But sources close to him told the T&T Guardian any­one can file a nom­i­na­tion.

In May 2019, the for­mer chair­man of the UNC-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tion was ar­rest­ed by An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau of­fi­cers and placed on two al­leged cor­rup­tion charges. He was charged with ac­cept­ing a bribe and cor­rupt­ly so­lic­it­ing a $1,500 bribe in June 2018 and was grant­ed $100,00 bail.

Since Ram didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly step down from the cor­po­ra­tion chair­man­ship and no moves were made by UNC’s lead­er­ship to re­move him, there were calls from with­in the UNC and the Gov­ern­ment for him to step down. He sub­se­quent­ly didn’t of­fer him­self as a can­di­date for the Biche/Charu­ma seat which he’d held when De­cem­ber 2019 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions ar­rived.

Ram­nar­ine was the pre­vi­ous PP ad­min­is­tra­tion’s En­er­gy min­is­ter. He was in the run­ning for the seat in 2015 with then MP Collin Par­tap but ei­ther was cho­sen and Newal­lo-Ho­sein was. Ram­nar­ine was low pro­file with UNC this term but carved out a niche as an en­er­gy ex­pert. He did not an­swer calls to his phone yes­ter­day.

Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la’s ex­ec­u­tive was to meet last night to de­cide on nom­i­nees.

To­co-San­gre Grande nom­i­nees are re­port­ed to in­clude sev­er­al peo­ple who’d worked with for­mer late MP Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith and a pop­u­lar ra­dio host.

UNC sen­a­tor Kadi­jah Ameen is al­so tipped for St Au­gus­tine, sources said, while Ani­ta Haynes is tipped to re­place re­tir­ing MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan in Tabaquite. UNC’s ex­pect­ed to an­nounce sev­er­al more can­di­dates tonight.

So far, the ma­jor­i­ty of MPs haven’t been screened save for Na­pari­ma’s Rod­ney Charles and Pointe-a-Pierre’s David Lee.

UNC ac­tivists ex­pect changes in sev­er­al safe seats. Peo­ple be­ing tipped in­clude a for­mer In­dus­tri­al Court judge for Ch­agua­nas West where MP Gan­ga Singh isn’t con­test­ing. A for­mer Petrotrin di­rec­tor who’s an at­tor­ney is tipped for Ca­roni-Cen­tral and a south busi­ness­man for Ca­roni East. A for­mer Petrotrin em­ploy­ee who’s the rel­a­tive of for­mer Fyz­abad MP Er­rol Macleod is tipped for Fyz­abad, sources added.

UNC of­fi­cials yes­ter­day said they wouldn’t be sur­prised if a Ju­ly or Au­gust poll is called.