Gail Alexan­der

Gail Alexan­der

Sev­er­al Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) front­line MPs say they are yet to de­cide if they would seek to rep­re­sent their con­stituen­cies fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment on Mon­day that the par­ty would start ac­cept­ing nom­i­na­tions from May 11.

At Mon­day's UNC fo­rum at Guaico Gov­ern­ment School, San­gre Grande, the PM said the gen­er­al elec­tion was at hand and from next Mon­day, the UNC would be­gin dis­trib­ut­ing nom­i­na­tion forms for po­ten­tial can­di­dates.

She did not give a dead­line for sub­mis­sion. Last month UNC of­fi­cials had said screen­ing of po­ten­tial can­di­dates would be done in a two-week pe­ri­od af­ter an elec­tion date was called. The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment has al­most com­plet­ed se­lect­ing its team to con­test the polls.

The UNC has the ma­jor­i­ty (18) of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's 26 MPs apart from the five Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) MPs, two To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) MPs and Move­ment of So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ's) Er­rol McLeod.

Nom­i­nees would be screened by UNC's screen­ing team head­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar and in­clud­ing ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

Among UNC MPs polled, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said he had not de­cid­ed if he would agree to be nom­i­nat­ed again. "I have to dis­cuss things first with my fam­i­ly and con­stituents, etc," he said.

San Juan/Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan said he had giv­en 20 years of his life to T&T and had to de­cide be­tween nom­i­na­tion and re­turn­ing to ser­vice his pa­tients in his spe­cial­ist field of con­struc­tive urol­o­gy.

"I al­so think the Health Min­istry has been put on a prop­er foot­ing now so it's a pret­ty easy choice for me but I haven't of­fi­cial­ly de­cid­ed yet," Khan said.

Ch­agua­nas East MP Stephen Cadiz said his renom­i­na­tion was an is­sue that was the fo­cus of on-go­ing dis­cus­sions with con­stituen­cy groups.

He added: "The best per­son put for­ward is the per­son we want to have go up. While I'm the in­cum­bent we – groups, par­ty, nom­i­nees, etc – will con­tin­ue talk­ing. We have a lit­tle time and we will see how it shapes up.

"Every­one will have their say. There are lots of peo­ple I'm sure will want to throw their hats in­to the ring and the seat isn't owned by any­one save the UNC cur­rent­ly.

"Re­gard­less of what­ev­er fu­ture de­ci­sions, I'm a staunch par­ty sup­port­er and will al­ways sup­port the par­ty and my Prime Min­is­ter but be as­sured PNM's re­cent Ch­agua­nas East trou­bles won't make us com­pla­cent."

Na­pari­ma MP Nizam Baksh who said he want­ed to con­tin­ue added he would want to speak with con­stituents first on if he "should go back or if peo­ple want­ed new blood among some of the old faces."

Fyz­abad MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma, who re­signed last year but was cleared by po­lice on a do­mes­tic part­ner is­sue, said he would agree to be nom­i­nat­ed.

Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la MP Collin Par­tap whose breathal­yser con­vic­tion is now be­fore the Ap­peal Court said nom­i­na­tion would de­pend on the par­ty groups with which he would be meet­ing over com­ing days.

Sacked min­is­ter Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh whose con­duct on a do­mes­tic Caribbean Air­lines flight is still be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by po­lice, didn't re­ply to texts on his po­si­tion.

Tabaquite MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan said he would put up his name for nom­i­na­tion and it would be up to the screen­ing team to de­cide on the team which would best rep­re­sent T&T.

Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh said re­cent­ly he was open for nom­i­na­tion and ready for screen­ing.

To­co/San­gre Grande MP Ru­pert Grif­fith said he had been work­ing in the seat con­stant­ly since 2010 and would de­cide on his po­si­tion. Ma­yaro MP Win­ston Pe­ters was un­avail­able but UNC's Ma­yaro unit of­fi­cials said Pe­ters would be nom­i­nat­ed again.

Oth­er UNC MPs didn't an­swer calls. PP sen­a­tors Kevin Ram­nar­ine and Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein (St Joseph care­tak­er) didn't re­spond to queries whether they would agree to be nom­i­nat­ed.

Oth­er par­ties po­si­tion

The five COP MPs' names – Win­ston Dook­er­an, Car­olyn Seep­er­sad Bachan, Lin­coln Dou­glas, Rodger Samuel and leader Prakash Ra­mad­har – were nom­i­nat­ed to COP's ex­ec­u­tive two months ago.

COP and the UNC are hold­ing seat al­lo­ca­tion dis­cus­sions.The COP wants 13, the six it held and sev­en oth­ers it con­test­ed in 2010 and lost.

Dook­er­an says he hasn't made an an­nounce­mentt whether he would con­test or not. Sources close to him said yes­ter­day he may not be in­ter­est­ed in re­turn­ing as an MP but oth­er work at re­gion­al/in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els where there are of­fers for him and may al­so like to have in­put on a suc­ces­sor in the seat.

He is head­ing speak­ers at UNDP's cur­rent fo­rum on the Caribbean's fu­ture.

TOP's To­ba­go East MP Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin says she would sub­mit her name for nom­i­na­tion again when the par­ty process­es be­gin. Col­league MP Del­mon Bak­er didn't an­swer calls.