Gail Alexan­der

Deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) Prakash Ra­mad­har has been ap­proved by his par­ty to con­test the St Au­gus­tine seat, while the par­ty's leader Win­ston Dook­er­an will con­test Tu­na­puna in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, COP of­fi­cials con­firmed yes­ter­day.

Ra­mad­har was part of COP's slate of ten can­di­dates which was ap­proved yes­ter­day by COP's screen­ing team. Con­tact­ed about the readi­ness of can­di­dates, COP chair­man Roy Au­gus­tus said in an in­ter­view that all can­di­dates had been se­lect­ed and were to be rat­i­fied at a meet­ing last night. Au­gus­tus de­clined to re­veal any names, say­ing the team was ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced by to­day. How­ev­er, the Guardian checks re­vealed that Ra­mad­har, an at­tor­ney, would be fight­ing St Au­gus­tine and Dook­er­an would be con­test­ing Tu­na­puna. Both seats have been award­ed to the COP in the uni­ty arrange­ment with the UNC.

COP got a to­tal of ten seats to con­test, while the UNC is con­test­ing 24 and the oth­er three part­ners in the unit­ed op­po­si­tion force would con­test the oth­er sev­en seats. St Au­gus­tine is cur­rent­ly held by the UNC MP Vas­ant Bharath. The lat­ter was still wait­ing word yes­ter­day from the UNC on if he would be giv­en the St Joseph or an­oth­er seat to con­test. Dook­er­an had con­test­ed St Au­gus­tine against Bharath in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion. Bharath, how­ev­er, won. COP of­fi­cials said dis­cus­sions had been held in the last few days to de­cide whether Dook­er­an should con­test St Au­gus­tine again or whether Ra­mad­har should con­test the seat.

COP sources said that oth­er peo­ple ap­proved as can­di­dates in­clud­ed:

�2 Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith (Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral);

�2 Rock Gar­cia (Diego Mar­tin West);

�2 COP deputy leader Car­olyn Seep­er­sad Bachan (San Fer­nan­do West);

�2 Roger Samuel (Ari­ma);

�2 COP deputy leader Wendy Lee Yuen (Lopinot-Bonaire); and

�2 Anil Roberts (Port-of-Spain North).

The 41 can­di­dates of the unit­ed op­po­si­tion force are ex­pect­ed to be pre­sent­ed at the start of May.