Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardain.co.tt

An­der­son Nanan, a man­ag­er in the Op­po­si­tion-con­trolled Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, has been rec­om­mend­ed by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Screen­ing Com­mit­tee to con­test the by-elec­tion for the Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo seat.

Nanan and Lengua/In­di­an Walk nom­i­nee Aut­ly Granthume got the nod from the Screen­ing Com­mit­tee at the Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day.

Gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings con­firmed that a spe­cial meet­ing of the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive will be con­vened on Mon­day to con­sid­er and ap­prove the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Screen­ing Com­mit­tee.

While they were ex­pect­ing fierce com­pe­ti­tion from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi said they wel­comed the chal­lenge.

Not­ing that Nanan worked as a man­ag­er at the cor­po­ra­tion and had 24 years of ser­vice, he said Nanan was adamant that he had a very good chance.

In­ter­viewed by re­porters at the Southex Food, Agri­cul­ture and Bev­er­age Ex­po at Gulf City Mall in La Ro­main, Al-Rawi said, “For some­one like him to step for­ward and rep­re­sent the PNM says a lot. It is a cor­po­ra­tion that is al­most 100 per cent Op­po­si­tion-con­trolled and has al­ways been. So to have some­one who comes from the es­tab­lish­ment, step for­ward and say I am will­ing to be part of the Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment, for us as a po­lit­i­cal par­ty is a big state­ment and a big win.”

The min­is­ter said the dip­stick of the by-elec­tions on June 17 would be the vot­er turnout and not so much the re­sults.

“What­ev­er the re­sults are go­ing to be, the cor­po­ra­tions will stay the same. There is not go­ing to be a swing one way or the oth­er. It re­mains the sta­tus quo, 7/7.”

The Quinam/Pe­nal seat be­came va­cant fol­low­ing the death of Diptee Ram­nath last De­cem­ber.

Fol­low­ing the Au­gust 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, the pre­lim­i­nary re­sults in­di­cat­ed that Granthume won 1,430 votes while the UNC can­di­date Nicole Gopaul got 1,425.

At the re­quest of the UNC, there was a re­count that even­tu­al­ly re­sult­ed in a dead­lock that led to the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion or­der­ing fresh elec­tions.

The UNC had sub­se­quent­ly mount­ed a le­gal chal­lenge, but it was dis­missed by the Court of Ap­peal.