Gail Alexan­der

The COP ex­pects to know by to­day whether par­ty leader Win­ston Dook­er­an will con­test the St Au­gus­tine seat or if deputy leader Prakash Ra­mad­har will do so, par­ty of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day. UNC in­cum­bent Vas­ant Bharath would not be part of the St Au­gus­tine sce­nario since the COP was award­ed that seat in the uni­ty arrange­ment with the UNC. In the op­po­si­tion's arrange­ment of unit­ed forces, the UNC is con­test­ing 24 seats, the COP ten, with four be­ing con­test­ed by NJAC, two by the TOP and one by the MSJ. Both the UNC and COP are work­ing to com­plete screen­ing be­fore to­mor­row. The seats which COP would be con­test­ing in­clud­ed Ari­ma, St Au­gus­tine, Tu­na­puna, D'Abadie O'Meara, Lopinot-Bon Air West, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro Arou­ca South, San Fer­nan­do West, Diego Mar­tin West and Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral.

Ra­mad­har's name is al­so fig­ur­ing in the San Fer­nan­do West seat where COP con­tenders al­so in­clude Mar­lene Coudray and COP deputy Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan. UNC in­cum­bent Bharath was screened for St Au­gus­tine last week. Since then, how­ev­er, St Au­gus­tine was "giv­en" to COP to con­test in the op­po­si­tion forces' seat-shar­ing arrange­ment. Bharath's ex­ec­u­tive, which has not heard any­thing since then, has still been lob­by­ing for him for St Au­gus­tine. Apart from sub­mit­ting a pe­ti­tion to the UNC lead­er­ship on Tues­day, fur­ther let­ters were sent from St Au­gus­tine busi­ness­men and farm­ers yes­ter­day, call­ing for Bharath to be re­turned. How­ev­er, UNC lead­er­ship of­fi­cials said Bharath may be out of that seat due to the uni­ty arrange­ment's con­di­tions.

They said at the screen­ing process for Bharath, he was asked if he would con­sid­er con­test­ing an­oth­er seat if St Au­gus­tine was un­avail­able. St Joseph was sug­gest­ed for Bharath. But no de­ci­son has been made, UNC of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day. UNC's nom­i­nees for St Joseph in­clud­ed for­mer MP Car­son Charles, ex-sen­a­tor Sharon Gopaul Mc­Ni­col, in­sur­ance ex­ec­u­tive Neal Go­sine, econ­o­mist In­dera Sage­wan-Ma­haraj. Car­los John dropped out. Mean­while, COP deputy leader Wendy Lee Yuen said yes­ter­day that the COP aims to have can­di­dates who live in the ar­eas they seek to rep­re­sent. Lee Yuen said fi­nal al­lo­ca­tion of seats in that par­ty would be com­plet­ed soon. "I think we've found our pool of can­di­dates....We've made progress in find­ing strong peo­ple to run," she added.

Lee Yuen dis­missed spec­u­la­tion she might con­test the Ari­ma seat. Lee Yuen said she be­lieved can­di­dates should live in ar­eas they seek to rep­re­sent. "I don't live in Ari­ma...T&T is cry­ing out for strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion and there­fore you must live in the area you rep­re­sent," she said. "No area can tru­ly be prop­er­ly rep­re­sent­ed if a per­son lives in West­moor­ings and has to rep­re­sent Point Fortin. "Hav­ing per­sons who live in the con­stituen­cy is a built-in way of en­sur­ing the peo­ple can ac­cess the per­son if they be­come MP and that the MP will nev­er lose touch with the area's is­sues...It is one way of ground­ing an MP." Lee Yuen had no com­ment on re­ports that COP mem­bers had ap­proached PNM Ari­ma MP Pen­ny Beck­les–who lives in that area–to con­sid­er con­test­ing the seat. Se­nior COP of­fi­cials had said ap­proach­es were made re­cent­ly to Beck­les by COP's Ari­ma mem­bers. They al­so con­firmed UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was very much aware that "peo­ple were talk­ing to Pen­ny."