Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Twen­ty-four-year-old farmer Avan­ish Singh is the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment prospec­tive can­di­date for the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion.The Ch­agua­nas West seat be­came va­cant on May 10, af­ter Jack Warn­er re­signed as MP. This means the by-elec­tion had to take place be­fore Au­gust 8.Warn­er al­so re­signed as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and as UNC chair­man on April 21.Yes­ter­day af­ter­noon at Bal­isi­er House, Singh and Kr­ish­na Ramkissoon were screened to be the prospec­tive can­di­dates.Singh, of Fe­lic­i­ty, is the Youth and Pol­i­cy Of­fi­cer of the Sec­tion 34 Group. He is a Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies grad­u­ate with a bach­e­lor's de­gree in Agri-sci­ence and has a cer­tifi­cate of com­ple­tion for par­tic­i­pa­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al work for the roll out of agri­cul­tur­al risk man­age­ment on train­ing ma­te­r­i­al. His fam­i­ly boasts of the largest amount of farm­ers in the coun­try and grow crops such as sweet pota­toes and hot pep­pers.

Singh ad­dressed PNM sup­port­ers and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 mem­bers of the Sec­tion 34 Group, say­ing he was proud to rep­re­sent the PNM on Ju­ly 29."I put my­self up for this ho­n­ourable in­sti­tu­tion of the PNM with the fun­da­men­tals to core which I will ho­n­our on Ju­ly 29. On the 30th we bring home the Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy. I will bring to you youth...not youth on­ly with a pas­sion but with pur­pose. It is an ho­n­our to be the peo­ple's prospec­tive can­di­date for the PNM and start the change this coun­try is dy­ing for. Let it be known the next Prime Min­is­ter is the ho­n­ourable Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley," he said."For those of you who are on the fence, who are un­de­cid­ed open your eyes to the ails that you have been fac­ing un­der the cur­rent regime. I am the in­di­vid­ual about to change that as the can­di­date and all of us shall be ben­e­fit­ting from our re­sources. Not just one or two in a ca­bal," he said.PNM's par­ty chair­man Franklin Khan said Singh was an ex­pe­ri­enced farmer and promi­nent busi­ness­man in Ch­agua­nas.

PM on by-elec­tion

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her ad­dress last night dur­ing the UNC Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Fe­lic­i­ty said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship had agreed to field on­ly a UNC can­di­date for the seat."Our par­ty is yet to de­cide on who will rep­re­sent you in this elec­tion. There are many who are seek­ing the nom­i­na­tion in­clud­ing your for­mer MP. And as I have said be­fore we will fol­low the par­ty rules and its con­sti­tu­tion to se­lect your can­di­date," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.She said those wish­ing to con­test this by-elec­tion should file their nom­i­na­tions in ac­cor­dance with the UNC Con­sti­tu­tion at the Rien­zi Com­plex on or be­fore Fri­day 21st June 2013 no lat­er than 4 pm.She al­so said screen­ing will take place dur­ing the week of June 24, 2013.