Gail Alexan­der

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Port-of-Spain South unit is ex­pect­ed to meet the par­ty lead­er­ship on Tues­day (June 23) re­gard­ing can­di­date Cleopa­tra Borel, while the La Brea con­stituen­cy hopes to fi­nal­ly have a can­di­date se­lect­ed then as well.

This was con­firmed by of­fi­cials of each con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive on Sun­day.

The sev­en nom­i­nees for La Brea will be screened at 5 pm on Tues­day, La Brea ex­ec­u­tive Wayne Wood con­firmed. Screen­ing, which was ini­tial­ly to have been done last Sat­ur­day, was pushed to to­mor­row since the screen­ing team’s leader—Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley—was in To­ba­go last Sat­ur­day.

Sources have tipped North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty chair­man Steve De Las to be giv­en the nod. He’s been rec­om­mend­ed and has strong sup­port, while Steve McLetchie has al­so been rec­om­mend­ed. Oth­er La Brea of­fi­cials said they firm­ly ex­pect to have a can­di­date se­lect­ed this week.

La Brea is the last seat for which a can­di­date must be com­plet­ed. The PNM’s oth­er can­di­dates are all “in the field” cam­paign­ing.

That is, save for PoS South’s Borel. Af­ter she was se­lect­ed on May 28, the PoS South ex­ec­u­tive wrote the par­ty lead­er­ship on May 31 ex­press­ing dis­en­chant­ment. They ex­pressed con­cern that she didn’t know the area, they didn’t know her and that a can­di­date was be­ing “foist­ed” on the ex­ec­u­tive. The unit’s chair­man, Wen­dell Stephens, was a lead­ing nom­i­nee to re­place in­cum­bent Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald but he wasn’t se­lect­ed.

When there was no re­ply from the lead­er­ship on the unit’s let­ter—save a re­port­ed com­ment that Borel was the can­di­date cho­sen—the ex­ec­u­tive wrote a sec­ond let­ter to the par­ty last Tues­day. There was no re­ply ei­ther. But PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings was re­port­ed to have sub­se­quent­ly said Borel was nom­i­nat­ed, had par­ty group sup­port and was se­lect­ed af­ter screen­ing.

At the same time, PoS North chair­man Chin­ua Al­leyne was ap­point­ed elec­tion co-or­di­na­tor for both PoS North and South. He was one of 18 co-or­di­na­tors ap­point­ed by the par­ty for con­stituen­cies.

Last Sat­ur­day, Al­leyne met mem­bers of the area’s ex­ec­u­tive and Borel. But PoS South of­fi­cials said on­ly “some” mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive at­tend­ed the meet­ing. Among those ab­sent was Stephens, they ad­mit­ted. How­ev­er, they said the meet­ing was cor­dial and was a start on the is­sue. They de­scribed the unit as be­ing “well on the way to cam­paign­ing.”

The ex­ec­u­tive al­so ex­plained that a meet­ing has been se­cured by the ex­ec­u­tive’s lead­er­ship with the PNM lead­er­ship this week.

While it was ini­tial­ly planned for Thurs­day, it has been brought for­ward to to­mor­row.

As a re­sult, they said, “This meet­ing with the par­ty leader and oth­er PNM lead­er­ship of­fi­cials and the top PoS South ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials should bring fi­nal­i­ty to our mat­ter. We ex­pect the sit­u­a­tion will be re­solved and the unit will—as it al­ways does—move for­ward.”

They added that af­ter last Sat­ur­day’s meet­ing, Borel’s walk­bouts in the con­stituen­cy were pro­ject­ed to be­gin this week. Stephens didn’t re­ply to calls yes­ter­day.

UNC com­pletes screen­ing

Mean­while, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress yes­ter­day con­firmed that the par­ty had com­plet­ed screen­ing all of its re­main­ing nom­i­nees—about 19—last Fri­day.

The UNC has an­nounced about 16 can­di­dates so far. Par­ty of­fi­cials said more may be an­nounced ahead, adding they are work­ing to­wards a pos­si­ble gen­er­al elec­tion date of Sep­tem­ber 7.

Oth­er par­ty sources say about half of the UNC’s cur­rent 18-mem­ber line-up will be changed, in­clud­ing front­line MPs. The par­ty is on­ly field­ing the 39 Trinidad seats but none in To­ba­go. The UNC is tar­get­ting To­co/San­gre Grande, Moru­ga, Tu­na­puna, St Joseph, San Fer­nan­do West and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro. The UNC’s co-or­di­na­tor for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, deputy leader Jear­lean John, who has been “work­ing it” since last year, is tipped to be the can­di­date there.