Pe­ter Christo­pher

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Sad­dam Ho­sein be­lieves his time in the Up­per House will give him the edge in the race for the San Juan/Barataria seat in the forth­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ho­sein was named as the man to suc­ceed Dr Fuad Khan, the cur­rent MP for the area, by the UNC ex­ec­u­tive over the week­end and was the most recog­nis­able of five can­di­dates un­veiled for the elec­tion.

He will face for­mer Road March win­ner and ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Ja­son Williams for the mar­gin­al seat, which Khan on­ly won by 540 votes in 2015.

Williams was con­firmed as the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­date for the area in ear­ly May and less than two weeks lat­er was sworn in as a Sen­a­tor on March 19, fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Robert Le Hunte.

“It’s go­ing to be an ex­cit­ing race. I am very glad that the par­ty se­lect­ed me to be the can­di­date for the gen­er­al elec­tion for the seat of Barataria/San Juan. I think I have the abil­i­ty to bring home this mar­gin­al seat for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress,” Ho­sein told Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day.

“The thing is I have shown my abil­i­ty and my com­pe­tence in the Par­lia­ment to prop­er­ly pros­e­cute and rep­re­sent the in­ter­est of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to pro­tect the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of Trinidad and To­ba­go. For the last three years a sen­a­tor, I would have con­tributed to over 65 de­bates in the Par­lia­ment. I even pi­lot­ed my own pri­vate mo­tion on crime. That is one of the is­sues that cur­rent­ly af­fect the con­stituen­cy of Barataria/San Juan.”

This, he said, dis­tin­guish­es him­self from his con­stituen­cy ri­val de­spite him (Ho­sein) al­so be­ing a young can­di­date.

“While I have the youth on my side I have the com­pe­ten­cy and I have the pro­fes­sion­al abil­i­ty to prop­er­ly rep­re­sent the peo­ple of Barataria/San Juan,” said Ho­sein, who said he had al­ready spo­ken with Khan fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment of his can­di­da­cy.

He said Khan, who last week con­firmed he would not vy­ing for re-elec­tion to the seat, had ex­pressed his sup­port and he was look­ing for­ward to work­ing with the out­go­ing MP to ad­dress the needs of the San Juan/Barataria con­stituen­cy.

Khan had been MP for the area from 1995 to 2007, be­fore los­ing to Mustapha Ab­dul Hamid in the 2007 elec­tion but re­gained the seat in 2010 and re­tained it in 2015.

Ho­sein’s can­di­da­cy was an­nounced along­side for­mer Con­gress of the Peo­ple mem­ber Flo­ra Singh (Ari­ma), at­tor­ney Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly (Ch­agua­nas West), Mau­rice Hoyte (D’Abadie/O’Meara) and Nabi­la Greene (To­co/San­gre Grande).

These an­nounce­ments brought the num­ber of con­firmed UNC can­di­dates for the still to be an­nounced gen­er­al elec­tions to 16.