NADALEEN SINGH

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) will be­gin screen­ing of can­di­dates for gen­er­al elec­tion soon.

"We have es­tab­lished our screen­ing com­mit­tees–cer­tain­ly we have be­gun screen­ing of lo­cal gov­ern­ment per­sons, but that would now have to in­clude per­sons for the gen­er­al elec­tions–very short­ly," she said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions held at the Mal­oney car park, Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way yes­ter­day. Her re­marks comes af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning de­clared that he was putting T&T on an elec­tion mode. He made the de­c­la­ra­tion at the Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre last Sat­ur­day, when the PNM held its spe­cial con­ven­tion, say­ing that the par­ty would start screen­ing of 41 can­di­dates from April 7. Com­ment­ing on Man­ning's as­sur­ance that he was not jok­ing about putting the par­ty on elec­tion mode, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed dis­plea­sure over the as­sur­ance. "It's a sad day in a coun­try when you can­not be­lieve what the Prime Min­is­ter of the coun­try has to say...when the prime min­is­ter would make a se­ri­ous state­ment on one day, and then on an­oth­er day, say I am not jok­ing," she said.

"Imag­ine he has to try to con­vince peo­ple he is not jok­ing. I have said be­fore don't 'back back.' I call on the Prime Min­is­ter again, do not 'back back.' "The peo­ple want the chance to ex­er­cise their fran­chise, and you must seek a fresh man­date be­cause there is so much that has hap­pened, the na­tion is in a cri­sis–come back, go back to the polls." Re­fer­ring to the state of readi­ness of her par­ty, Kam­la said the par­ty was pre­pared. She ear­li­er told mem­bers of the Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty that when she was suc­cess­ful in the gen­er­al elec­tion, she would build the school which was promised to them. "I pledge that to­geth­er with you, I will help build our school here when we form the next gov­ern­ment," she said. "As be­fore, as al­ways, I stand ready to work with you to re­alise the dream we start­ed a decade ago."