JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Financial adviser gets nod to replace MP Lisa

by

KAY-MARIE FLETCHER
22 days ago
20250128
Dominic Romain speaks to reporters after being selected as the new candidate to represent Malabar/Mausica following the PNM’s screening of candidates last night.

Dominic Romain speaks to reporters after being selected as the new candidate to represent Malabar/Mausica following the PNM’s screening of candidates last night.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nan­cial ad­vis­er Do­minic Ro­main has been cho­sen as the new Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date to rep­re­sent the Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca (for­mer­ly D’Abadie/O’Meara) con­stituen­cy, a po­si­tion that be­came va­cant fol­low­ing the trag­ic death of for­mer MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian last month.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian died along with two of her chil­dren in a trag­ic house fire on De­cem­ber 16.

Ro­main was cho­sen over six oth­er nom­i­nees, in­clud­ing Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s mentee Cal­vary coun­cil­lor Je­niece Scott, al­der­man Derek King, Ari­ma North­east coun­cil­lor Kim Gar­cia-John, at­tor­ney San­jiv Bood­hu, Brit­tany Pierre and Lu­anne Pam­phille, fol­low­ing a screen­ing process at the par­ty’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain last night.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s hus­band Daniel and one of her sis­ters were present to throw their sup­port be­hind the can­di­dates.

Af­ter the re­sults were an­nounced, Ro­main, 44, told Guardian Me­dia he was look­ing for­ward to work­ing as hard as Mor­ris-Ju­lian.

He said, “I am hum­bled that the par­ty ex­ec­u­tive would have re­posed its con­fi­dence in me, al­beit a bit­ter­sweet mo­ment giv­en the cir­cum­stances which would have led to this va­can­cy com­ing about. The for­mer MP and I were fair­ly good friends for the short pe­ri­od of time that we would have known each oth­er, and I on­ly hope that I would be able to pick up the man­tle that’s been left with her un­for­tu­nate pass­ing. I am go­ing to work as hard as I can and as hard as she would have done to make D’Abadie/O’Meara now Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca the con­stituen­cy that it tru­ly can be.”

Sev­er­al sup­port­ers told Guardian Me­dia it was a bit­ter­sweet mo­ment to wit­ness Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s seat be­ing screened again, since she is “ir­re­place­able.”

There was al­so a lot of anx­i­ety at the venue as the screen­ing com­mit­tee, head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, took over an hour to de­cide on the re­sults for this seat.

While many sup­port­ers ap­peared dis­ap­point­ed by the choice, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said af­ter­wards that they were sat­is­fied with Ro­main.

“They had a lot of nom­i­nees. There were sev­en peo­ple, so we nor­mal­ly would be very thor­ough in ques­tion­ing and talk­ing with peo­ple who are prospec­tive can­di­dates,” Row­ley said.

“There is a lot of en­thu­si­asm. It is a new­ly named seat and, of course, you know in our tragedy with Lisa, there are a lot of peo­ple who want­ed to take up the man­tle, so we were quite hap­py to have had them all and in the end, we got a very good choice and I think we are ready for vic­to­ry in that seat.”

In­cum­bent Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young and Port-of-South MP Kei­th Scot­land were al­so screened yes­ter­day, al­though they were un­con­test­ed in their seats.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Young said, “I am hap­py to be of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty once again to serve Trinidad and To­ba­go by the best con­stituen­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, and I look for­ward, with the sup­port of my con­stituen­cy, to serv­ing all of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go as we go for­ward to win the next gen­er­al elec­tion and to re­turn the PNM to pow­er and to gov­er­nance and one thing you can count on is we will give our best and we will al­ways do what is right for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I love you all.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to Young’s fa­ther, for­mer man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and coun­try head of Sco­tia­bank T&T Richard Young, who ex­pressed pride and joy in see­ing how far his son had reached in pol­i­tics.

He said, “This is the third time he’s be­ing screened. It is a sense of joy with par­ent­hood to see your chil­dren pro­gress­ing and do­ing well.”

Asked how he felt about Young be­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter-in-wait­ing, he said, “That’s a re­al­ly deep, deep one. It con­firms fo­cus, hard work and ded­i­ca­tion re­al­ly pays off in every­thing in life, not just in this.”

On if he ever imag­ined his son would be­come prime min­is­ter, he said, “Nev­er. I want­ed the man to be a top lawyer, and he was head­ing there and then Dr Row­ley called him.

“I told Dr Row­ley about 11 years ago, I said, ‘Doc, look af­ter the man for me’. He said, ‘Don’t wor­ry, don’t wor­ry’.”

Asked how he felt about his son’s race be­ing an is­sue for some peo­ple, he replied, “I think it’s un­for­tu­nate, but I don’t think it’s deep. When peo­ple re­flect and re­alise and think about it, they would re­alise this is what Trinidad and To­ba­go is all about.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, it hurts you a lit­tle bit to hear that, but you have to rise be­yond those things.”

Last night, Row­ley al­so con­firmed that the Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive was told to find more nom­i­nees to be screened, as nei­ther of the two prospec­tive can­di­dates were se­lect­ed.

The nom­i­nees were Ja­son Saun­ders and De­vi­ca Sookoo, daugh­ter of for­mer Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASTT) Dhano Sookoo. Sookoo was boot­ed out as pres­i­dent in 2021 af­ter serv­ing in the role for 13 years. Last year, Na­dia Ram­ta­hal-Singh was se­lect­ed for the con­stituen­cy but she had to bow out due to work com­mit­ments.

Along with Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, the fi­nal seats to be screened are Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin North/East and Diego Mar­tin West.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored