Gail Alexan­der

Two strikes and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MP An­cil An­toine has now been dropped as the par­ty’s D’Abadie O’Meara can­di­date be­cause of in­sen­si­tive and ob­jec­tion­able state­ments he made about the Unit­ed States dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing on Sat­ur­day.

This was con­firmed in a Face­book post on Sun­day from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who said he with­drew An­toine from PNM’s list of can­di­dates.

It was al­so con­firmed in a brief state­ment from An­toine, who said, “I made a state­ment of in­der­cre­tion (sic) and for this I is­sue an apol­o­gy. I have of­fered to the Po­lit­i­cal Leader my with­draw­al from the PNM Team for the 2020 Elec­tion.”

An­toine’s con­tro­ver­sial re­marks were made dur­ing an ad­dress at Sat­ur­day’s launch of a cam­paign of­fice. In a video cir­cu­lat­ing on Face­book, An­toine is heard say­ing, “Amer­i­ca is a sh**hole coun­try. I’m sor­ry to say that, right?”

There was loud laugh­ter heard from peo­ple he was ad­dress­ing be­fore he added, “And we have to make sure that we don’t al­low Amer­i­cans to come in­to Trinidad. You know all those Amer­i­cans, those Trinida­di­ans, who run in­to Amer­i­ca and need to send back all their bar­rels and so forth. Make sure you tell them to stay out of Trinidad for the rest of the year. All your fam­i­ly and them.”

It was the sec­ond time An­toine’s com­ments had at­tract­ed a neg­a­tive spot­light and Row­ley im­me­di­ate­ly act­ed to drop An­toine from his team—two weeks be­fore the Ju­ly 17 Nom­i­na­tion Day for the Au­gust 10 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Row­ley stat­ed on his Face­book site, “The Prime Min­is­ter has with­drawn Brig Gen­er­al An­cil An­toine (Ret) from the list of can­di­dates to be pre­sent­ed to PNM’s Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive for fi­nal ap­proval sched­uled for (to­day).

“This can­di­date’s re­moval is as a di­rect con­se­quence of in­sen­si­tive and ob­jec­tion­able state­ments made by him at a cam­paign launch re­cent­ly, such state­ments are not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the par­ty’s or coun­try’s po­si­tion.’’

The PNM’s cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive was due to rat­i­fy elec­tion can­di­dates to­day.

An­toine didn’t an­swer calls yes­ter­day but he is­sued his state­ment on his Face­book—apol­o­gy in­clud­ed.

An­toine’s re­marks came at a time when T&T is try­ing to move on from strained re­la­tions with the US. This fol­low­ing UNC state­ments about a fu­el ship­ment sold by Paria Fu­el Trad­ing ship­ment to fu­el ty­coon Wilmer Ru­per­ti which is al­leged to have end­ed up in Venezuela and the vis­it of Venezue­lan Vice-Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez to meet Row­ley in March—is­sues which the US had not­ed and which Gov­ern­ment has ex­plained, dis­miss­ing UNC in­ter­pre­ta­tions. Sub­se­quent­ly, on World Refugee day re­cent­ly, US Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo had praised T&T’s han­dling of Venezue­lan refugees. (See ed­i­to­r­i­al on page 12)

On­ly two weeks ago, An­toine’s can­di­da­cy was on the line af­ter some con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers took strong um­brage to re­marks he made at an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing. He’d lashed out at crit­ics, in­clud­ing di­rect­ly ac­cus­ing some mem­bers of not sup­port­ing his can­di­da­cy and com­plain­ing of oth­ers. He’d al­leged­ly said he would “do for all yuh” and had boast­ed of his mil­i­tary ca­reer. Some mem­bers said they were trau­ma­tised by the ver­bal at­tack.

Af­ter that, D’Abadie O’Meara’s ex­ec­u­tive was sum­moned to meet the PNM’s lead­er­ship. The ex­ec­u­tive was asked about the in­ci­dent and it was con­firmed by mem­bers. The lead­er­ship had al­so re­ceived a let­ter from a mem­ber. How­ev­er, the ex­ec­u­tive “saved” An­toine when they told the lead­er­ship they were still sat­is­fied with him.

Con­se­quent­ly, An­toine be­gan cam­paign­ing this week— un­til last Sat­ur­day’s re­marks. The ex­ec­u­tive now has to seek nom­i­nees again.

Yes­ter­day, D’Abadie O’Meara chair­man Her­man Noel said, “An­cil called and told me he was dropped from the can­di­da­cy and he was tak­ing a lit­tle ‘re­lax’. He sound­ed nor­mal. I’m dis­ap­point­ed but the lead­er­ship has to do what it has to do and I’m the kind of per­son who sup­ports the lead­er­ship.”

Noel said the is­sue of An­toine’s first set of con­tro­ver­sial re­marks hadn’t been “to­tal­ly set­tled” but dur­ing cam­paign­ing this week, An­toine had apol­o­gised to peo­ple who’d felt of­fend­ed.

“Most of them ac­cept­ed his apol­o­gy,” Noel added.

On why An­toine had spo­ken out like that again (on the US), Noel said he couldn’t spec­u­late ex­act­ly why but felt in the mil­i­tary life, when one reached the se­nior ranks, “When you speak every­one lis­tens...”

The ex­ec­u­tive, which thanked An­toine for his ser­vice to con­stituents over the past five years in a so­cial me­dia state­ment yes­ter­day, was meet­ing last night to ex­am­ine the way for­ward and await­ing word from the par­ty on what’s ex­pect­ed.

An­toine, who was dis­missed from the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry in 2016, wasn’t reap­point­ed a min­is­ter but had gone on to fo­cus­ing on the con­stituen­cy. For screen­ing, his and Av­dene Scott’s names were sub­mit­ted. PNM of­fi­cials said oth­er names may al­so arise ahead.

An­toine won the seat in the 2015 elec­tions af­ter Con­gress of the Peo­ple’s Anil Roberts had wrest­ed it from the PNM’s Karen Nunez-Tesheira, who held it over 2007-2010.

On­ly last Thurs­day, the PNM had com­plet­ed the se­lec­tion of its fi­nal area and had all 41 can­di­dates. But last night as the UNC an­nounced its 39 can­di­dates, the PNM was back to 40.

PNM’S CAN­DI­DATE SO FAR

ARI­MA – Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son

AROU­CA/MAL­ONEY – Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (in­cum­bent)

BARATARIA/SAN JUAN – Ja­son Williams

CA­RONI CEN­TRAL – Reyad Ali

CA­RONI EAST – Sharon Archie

CH­AGUA­NAS EAST – Clarence Ramb­harat

CH­AGUA­NAS WEST – Rack­ael Bis­soon

COU­VA NORTH – Shar­da Satram

COU­VA SOUTH – Ra­jen­dra Ram­per­sad

CU­MU­TO/MAN­ZANIL­LA – Ron­ney Lochan

D’ABADIE/ O’MEARA – TO BE FILLED

DIEGO MAR­TIN CEN­TRAL – Symon de No­bre­ga

DIEGO MAR­TIN NORTH/EAST – Colm Im­bert (in­cum­bent)

DIEGO MAR­TIN WEST – Kei­th Row­ley (in­cum­bent)

FYZ­ABAD – Solange De Souza

LA BREA – Steve Mcletchie

LA HOR­QUET­TA/TAL­PARO – Fos­ter Cum­mings

LAVEN­TILLE EAST/MOR­VANT – Adri­an Leonce (in­cum­bent)

LAVEN­TILLE WEST – Fitzger­ald Hinds (in­cum­bent)

LOPINOT/BON AIR WEST – Mar­vin Gon­za­les

MA­YARO – Bun­ny Ma­habirs­ingh

MORU­GA/TABLE­LAND – Win­ston Pe­ters

NA­PARI­MA – Randy Sinanan

OROPOUCHE EAST – Clif­ford Ramb­harose

OROPOUCHE WEST – Lea Ra­moutar

POINT FORTIN – Kennedy Richards

POINT-A-PIERRE – Daniel Dook­ie

POS NORTH – Stu­art Young (in­cum­bent)

POS SOUTH – Kei­th Scot­land

PRINCES TOWN – Sharon Ba­boolal

SAN FER­NAN­DO EAST – Bri­an Man­ning

SAN FER­NAN­DO WEST – Faris Al-Rawi (in­cum­bent)

SIPARIA – Re­bec­ca Dip­nar­ine

ST ANN’S EAST – Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly (in­cum­bent)

ST AU­GUS­TINE – Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal

ST JOSEPH – Ter­rence Deyals­ingh (in­cum­bent)

TABAQUITE – Michael Seales

TO­BA­GO EAST – Ayannna Web­ster-Roy (in­cum­bent)

TO­BA­GO WEST – Sham­fa Cud­joe (in­cum­bent)

TO­CO/SAN­GRE GRANDE – Roger Mon­roe

TU­NA­PUNA – Es­mond Forde (in­cum­bent)