Af­ter pub­licly an­nounc­ing can­di­dates for three con­stituen­cies in 2019 the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has now made a 180-de­gree turn.

In a me­dia re­lease sent on Jan­u­ary 27 the par­ty said, "The chair­man ad­vised that the po­lit­i­cal leader is­sued a call for nom­i­na­tions for the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion for all con­stituen­cies, ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly. The chair­man al­so ad­vised that whilst nom­i­na­tions would be opened from this week, the screen­ing ex­er­cise would com­mence af­ter Car­ni­val 2020."

How­ev­er, in Ju­ly 2019 the par­ty re­vealed that Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat was the par­ty's can­di­date for Ch­agua­nas East.

Re­spond­ing to brief ques­tions as he for­mal­ly opened the PNM’s newest con­stituen­cy of­fice at Lendore Vil­lage, En­ter­prise, in Au­gust 2019, Row­ley con­firmed Ramb­harat had been suc­cess­ful­ly screened and would be lead­ing the par­ty’s out­reach in Cen­tral.

Al­so in Ju­ly, the par­ty an­nounced as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary Daniel Dook­ie as its se­lect­ed can­di­date for Pointe-a-Pierre. PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma Lee Sing said Dook­ie was the first can­di­date from any po­lit­i­cal par­ty to be se­lect­ed for the 2020 elec­tion.

Lat­er that same month, tem­po­rary gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor Ndale Young was named as the prospec­tive can­di­date for the mar­gin­al and keen­ly con­test­ed con­stituen­cy of Barataria/San Juan. The par­ty said in a re­lease that "three out­stand­ing can­di­dates pre­sent­ed them­selves, and Young re­ceived the nod from the Screen­ing Com­mit­tee."

But af­ter an­nounc­ing that screen­ing would com­mence in all 41 con­stituen­cies af­ter Car­ni­val, Guardian Me­dia reached out to the once-named can­di­dates to find out if they would go through the process again.

Young:

Ndale Young said he would con­tin­ue to act like the prospec­tive can­di­date un­til he is told oth­er­wise.

Asked whether he would screen again, he said he would have to con­sult his wife, spir­i­tu­al leader and oth­ers.

He added that right now "I am fo­cused on win­ning the elec­tion and con­stituen­cy in what­ev­er po­si­tion I am asked to do so.”

Young said he was not told about the re­screen­ing ex­er­cise but said it was the pre­rog­a­tive of the chair­man and par­ty to do so.

He said "we were prospec­tive can­di­dates cho­sen by a ro­bust process and it’s a process I be­lieve in."

Dook­ie:

Dook­ie of­fered a sim­i­lar re­sponse when asked about re­screen­ing. He said, "I have not yet dis­cussed it with the con­stituen­cy. For now, I am work­ing with the con­stituen­cy as I usu­al­ly do."

Ramb­harat:

Ramb­harat said he too was un­aware of why the process was be­ing re­done. "I have no idea," he said.

He con­firmed that he would have to be screened again but stopped short of con­firm­ing that he would again seek to rep­re­sent Ch­agua­nas East.

"Now that par­ty groups from all 41 con­stituen­cies are prepar­ing to nom­i­nate can­di­dates, it’s pos­si­ble to be nom­i­nat­ed for more than one con­stituen­cy. Par­ty groups in Chag East have al­ready said to me that they would like to nom­i­nate me for the con­stituen­cy and oth­er par­ty groups from oth­er con­stituen­cies (I would not name them) have al­so ex­pressed an in­ter­est.

I am open to all the pos­si­bil­i­ties and when that time comes I would de­cide."

Cum­mings: This will al­low our new mem­bers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the process

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought clar­i­ty on the mat­ter from gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the PNM Fos­ter Cum­mings.

When asked how the nom­i­na­tion process was pro­ceed­ing he said, "We have not trig­gered the sub­mis­sion of ap­pli­ca­tions just yet but this will be done short­ly."

Re­spond­ing to whether the three con­stituen­cies—Barataria/San Juan, Pointe-a-Pierre and Ch­agua­nas East—where can­di­dates were al­ready screened will have to go over the process, Cum­mings said, "we will be invit­ing nom­i­na­tions for all 41 con­stituen­cies. In­clud­ing the ones you men­tioned. Per­sons pre­vi­ous­ly short­list­ed can sub­mit nom­i­na­tions."

Asked to ex­plain the ra­tio­nale be­hind this, Cum­mings said, "We have been en­gaged in a very in­ten­sive mem­ber­ship dri­ve and this will al­low our new mem­bers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the process."

The date for the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion has not yet been called but al­ready par­ties have be­gun screen­ing and re­veal­ing can­di­dates. Last week the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress an­nounced op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Sean Sobers as its can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West—The seat is cur­rent­ly held by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi. The par­ty al­so un­veiled chair­man of its na­tion­al women’s arm, Kenya Charles, as the can­di­date to con­test St Ann’s East—the in­cum­bent there is the PNM’s Dr Nyan Dol­ly, the Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts.

Al­so in the race for San Fer­nan­do West is po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty Nikoli Ed­wards and in­de­pen­dent can­di­date San Fer­nan­do busi­ness­woman, Jow­elle De Souza.