Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) St Au­gus­tine MP Kadi­jah Ameen is tipped to be re­turned to con­test the seat when the par­ty re­sumes screen­ing this af­ter­noon for sev­er­al con­stituen­cies along the East-West Cor­ri­dor.

The par­ty be­gan screen­ing re­cent­ly and chose can­di­dates for Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-held San Fer­nan­do West, which it is tar­get­ing, Barataria/San Juan and Ch­agua­nas East. Can­di­dates cho­sen re­spec­tive­ly were Dr Michael Dowlat and in­cum­bents Sad­dam Ho­sein and Van­dana Mo­hit.

Ar­eas be­ing screened to­day are for PNM-held Ari­ma, Arou­ca/Mal­oney, D’Abadie/O’Meara and Lopinot/Bon Air West, as well as St Au­gus­tine, which Ameen has held since Au­gust 2020.

For­mer St Au­gus­tine MP Vas­ant Bharath said he is not in to­day’s screen­ing. He re­con­nect­ed with UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she reached out to him in Ju­ly. The nom­i­na­tion dead­line was in April.

UNC sources said there are ap­prox­i­mate­ly five nom­i­nees for Ari­ma and a busi­ness­man’s son is among those seek­ing Lopinot/Bon Air West. UNC PRO Kirk Meighoo didn’t re­ply to calls for more de­tails yes­ter­day.

Screen­ing is from 4 pm at UNC’s Ch­agua­nas head of­fice. Can­di­dates cho­sen at to­day’s ex­er­cise will be pre­sent­ed at UNC’s Mon­day Night Fo­rum in Ch­agua­nas next week.

Once to­day’s ex­er­cise is com­plet­ed, the UNC will have can­di­dates for eight of the 39 seats in Trinidad for which it sought nom­i­na­tions. The par­ty has been silent on whether it would field can­di­dates for any of the two To­ba­go seats, or if it would have an arrange­ment with par­ties con­test­ing against the PNM in To­ba­go.

The UNC, which is track­ing PNM elec­tion prepa­ra­tions, in­clud­ing al­leged rush or­ders for red T-shirts, main­tains there will be an ear­ly elec­tion. PNM of­fi­cials were mum yes­ter­day on whether the par­ty has sought a “rush” on any­thing, “ex­cept the UNC’s as­sign­ment to op­po­si­tion per­ma­nent­ly.”