Geisha Kow­lessar

In 2010 in San Fer­nan­do West the PNM re­ceived 7,860 votes com­pared to the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP)/Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship 9,111 which left a mar­gin of 1,251 votes.

Deemed one of the many hot­ly-con­test­ed seats in this year's gen­er­al elec­tion, it seems that the PNM has the edge over the Gov­ern­ment.

The lat­est poll con­duct­ed in San Fer­nan­do West by GML's Louis Bertrand of H.H.B and As­so­ciates showed in­cum­bent MP Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan had a 60 per cent un­favourable rat­ing, which se­nior po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Win­ford James says could spell trou­ble for the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

But can PNM can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West Faris Al-Rawi bag a vic­to­ry for his par­ty?

Some de­trac­tors have viewed him as an "out­sider", a res­i­dent of an up­scale Port-of-Spain com­mu­ni­ty who is dis­con­nect­ed from the needs of the con­stituents, es­pe­cial­ly the or­di­nary folk.

Oth­er po­lit­i­cal gu­rus have said that be­cause Al-Rawi is a third gen­er­a­tion Par­lia­men­tar­i­an–his moth­er Di­ane Seuk­er­an served as PNM MP for San Fer­nan­do West and his grand­fa­ther Li­onel Seuk­er­an al­so served in Par­lia­ment un­der the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty (DLP)–this could eas­i­ly grant him some lever­age.

But Al-Rawi, who turned 44 last Sun­day, strong­ly de­fend­ed his can­di­da­cy, say­ing as a cit­i­zen of T&T he had a right to con­test any seat.

He al­so scoffed at claims he was not at­tuned to the pulse of San Fer­nan­do East, adding that he grew up "on the streets" of the south­ern city.

Al-Rawi said he was born at Vic­to­ria Nurs­ing Home in Vista­bel­la in San Fer­nan­do West and at­tend­ed Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School on Cof­fee Street, al­so in San Fer­nan­do West.

"I then at­tend­ed Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege on Cof­fee Street in San Fer­nan­do West. I was a cub scout, scout and then ven­ture scout in San Fer­nan­do West.

"I grew up on the streets of San Fer­nan­do West. I pushed box carts down Ruth Av­enue al­most every day as a child. I prac­tised karate at Li­on's Civic Cen­tre in San Fer­nan­do West.

"I vol­un­teered al­most every spare mo­ment that I had in my teenage years at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, the Na­pari­ma Bowl, the San Fer­nan­do Hill and many oth­er char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions and venues," the fa­ther of three de­tailed.

He added that as an at­tor­ney he al­so prac­tised be­tween Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do.

He added: "Hav­ing been blessed with deep sus­tained roots in San Fer­nan­do I am ever con­scious in choos­ing to give up my pri­vate life for pub­lic life that as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of San Fer­nan­do West, my call­ing and job will be to rep­re­sent all that is San Fer­nan­do.

"It mat­ters lit­tle where I some­times rest my head. It mat­ters more where I will spend my work­ing time and en­er­gy for San Fer­nan­do West.

"I think it is safe to say that I can be judged on my pub­lic record. I love peo­ple and I love to work for peo­ple, be it in law or in po­lit­i­cal life.

"My work eth­ic will be, and the re­sult of it for San Fer­nan­do West is, what is and what will be im­por­tant in be­ing con­sid­ered as the next mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for San Fer­nan­do West," Al-Rawi added.

He calls him­self Beard Man and he has a se­mi-per­ma­nent fix­ture

on High Street, San Fer­nan­do, sell­ing leather hand­i­craft.

Re­bel­lion with­in the PNM?

Re­spond­ing to crit­ics say­ing there was grow­ing dis­con­tent­ment and even "a re­bel­lion" with­in the par­ty due to the boot­ing out of cer­tain can­di­dates, in­clud­ing Don­na Cox and Amery Brown, dur­ing the screen­ing process, Al-Rawi was dis­mis­sive.

"Our de­trac­tors will have a lot to say about us. They have noth­ing to equal us in terms of trans­paren­cy and in­volve­ment in the process of our nom­i­na­tion and screen­ing.

"No oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty can even come close to what we en­gage in and how we im­ple­ment the con­sti­tu­tion of the PNM.

"Have you ever heard of a UNC or COP or NJAC screen­ing of the type that we demon­strate every elec­tion, every time?" Al-Rawi ques­tioned.

Se­lec­tion process

Crit­i­cism was al­so thrown at Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley who has been ac­cused of be­ing too high-hand­ed in the se­lec­tion process of can­di­dates.

But Al-Rawi said that was not the case. He not­ed that Row­ley was oblig­ed to ob­serve the PNM's con­sti­tu­tion.

"He has no cast­ing vote in the screen­ing com­mit­tee and has just the one vote giv­en to him. This was not al­ways so.

"It was through Dr Row­ley's own ad­vo­ca­cy that the PNM re­moved its po­lit­i­cal leader's cast­ing and con­trol­ling vote in the screen­ing of can­di­dates.

"As an of­fi­cer of the PNM I serve as a mem­ber of the screen­ing com­mit­tee. I can as­sure you that it is the com­mit­tee alone, as a com­mit­tee of which Dr Row­ley is on­ly one mem­ber, that se­lects can­di­dates who have been screened," Al-Rawi added.

Up for the chal­lenge

Born an Iraqi of Trinida­di­an parent­age, Al-Rawi al­so shot back at de­trac­tors who ac­cused him of re­ly­ing on his moth­er's po­lit­i­cal lin­eage to win the seat.

He said: "In T&T I am proud to be the son of my moth­er and the grand­son of my ma­ter­nal grand­par­ents, all of whom were ac­tive­ly in­volved in ser­vice to the peo­ple.

"In Iraq I am equal­ly proud to be the son of my fa­ther and the grand­son of my pa­ter­nal grand­par­ents who were al­so deeply in­volved in ser­vice to the peo­ple.

"I be­lieve that I have spent good time train­ing in and out­side of my fam­i­ly ex­pe­ri­ences. Con­sci­en­tious­ness and moral­i­ty are of­ten best learned at home.

"I be­lieve that I can stand on my own record as an ad­vo­cate for the peo­ple and as a very hard work­er. San Fer­nan­do is a city of fam­i­lies.

"The great­est sup­port that I have in San Fer­nan­do is be­yond my own blood fam­i­ly and it's the sup­port of the PNM fam­i­ly as I have had the ho­n­our of walk­ing the roads with two im­me­di­ate past mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and all mem­bers of the present and past San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion."

Say­ing he al­so re­spect­ed his op­po­nents, Al-Rawi, in the same breath, ex­pressed con­fi­dence that those who were not pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ers of the PNM were now will­ing to lend sup­port.

Asked why he was not cho­sen by the PNM to in­stead rep­re­sent an­oth­er seat, for in­stance Ch­agua­nas East or West, Al-Rawi said he "want­ed the hard­est fight of all the mar­gin­als" in the gen­er­al elec­tion and there­fore of­fered him­self for San Fer­nan­do West.

"I have been the re­cip­i­ent of the PNM's faith and good­will in front line po­lit­i­cal ser­vice in the Sen­ate for the last five years.

"I owe it to par­ty and coun­try to take on the hard fight. I do so with great plea­sure. I am a karate­ka and have prac­tised for many years.

"My fa­ther and my fam­i­ly mem­bers are all mar­tial artists. Pre­scrip­tions aside, I and we love a great fight."

De­vel­op­ment key for San­do West

San Fer­nan­do West, Al-Rawi said, was one which faced gross ne­glect. And what is he of­fer­ing?

He said the PNM would be de­tail­ing and pub­lish­ing its con­stituen­cy plan soon, adding it was ea­ger­ly await­ed by the peo­ple and "op­po­nents."

He added: "I have been work­ing my con­stituen­cy for months now and I am in­ti­mate­ly aware of the woes and trau­mas of the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do West.

"They have suf­fered and can't see or even recog­nise a sin­gle cent of the $350 bil­lion-plus spent by this PP Gov­ern­ment.

"They know what the UNC and COP have not giv­en them. Among oth­er de­liv­er­able, the peo­ple can ex­pect a lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form of deep sig­nif­i­cance.

"The vast ma­jor­i­ty of is­sues in San Fer­nan­do as a whole, and in­deed in T&T, are when stripped down, are es­sen­tial­ly is­sues of lo­cal gov­ern­ment de­liv­ery," Al-Rawi said.

He said he was al­so com­mit­ted to en­sure res­i­dents of the con­stituen­cy re­ceived the de­vel­op­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty they need­ed and de­served.

"As a strong ad­vo­cate I will fight for these de­liv­er­ables in and out­side of the PNM. My fo­cus is not on the next elec­tion but the one af­ter and the pe­ri­od of ser­vice in be­tween," he added.