Gail Alexan­der

PNM chair­man Con­rad Enill yes­ter­day says the rul­ing par­ty is ready for the May 24 elec­tion. He gave that re­sponse when he was asked about the readi­ness of the par­ty. Asked if the is­sues of the St Ann's and Ari­ma seats would af­fect the par­ty, Enill said: "We'd have to wait and see." Enill said the par­ty had a process re­gard­ing can­di­da­cies and that was tak­ing place. He said rec­om­men­da­tions were made and the screen­ing team would deal with the process.

UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day said: "There's noth­ing un­usu­al about the elec­tion date ex­cept that it is May 24 and my 77th birth­day is May 25." He added: "So I've been of­fered the elec­tion gift of win­ning the Ch­agua­nas seat which I'm con­test­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly since I do not know how the UNC will be able to crit­i­cise the PNM on cor­rup­tion when they sit on the same stage with Jack Warn­er ( Ch­agua­nas West MP)," Pan­day al­leged. "I am amazed at the amount of sup­port I'm get­ting to con­test Ch­agua­nas West. I've been cam­paign­ing for some time now. I shall show them what youth is," he added. PNM Diego Mar­tin West MP Kei­th Row­ley, con­test­ing again, did not an­swer calls to his cell­phone yes­ter­day.