JENSEN LA VENDE 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der, who was last as­signed to the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, has re­signed from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and has been tipped as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ prospec­tive can­di­date for Tu­na­puna. 

So­cial me­dia was abuzz yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, af­ter a post be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing that Alexan­der had re­signed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, in or­der to con­test the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy for the UNC. 

Short­ly af­ter the news broke, a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer con­firmed Alexan­der had re­signed with the of­fi­cer on­ly say­ing “Af­fir­ma­tive” when asked if there was any truth to his res­ig­na­tion. 

Up to late yes­ter­day evening, calls and mes­sages to UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar went unan­swered. 

Alexan­der, who host­ed the TTPS Be­yond the Tape crime show, was or­dered not to ap­pear on the pro­gramme from Feb­ru­ary 2024.

A month be­fore that di­rec­tive, he was sent on two-year va­ca­tion leave. That moved gen­er­at­ed crit­i­cism giv­en T&T’s crime sit­u­a­tion.

How­ev­er, he re­turned and was sta­tioned at the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit.

Alexan­der had shot in­to the lime­light when he be­gan ap­pear­ing on Crime Watch with Ian Al­leyne.

Alexan­der did not an­swer re­peat­ed calls yes­ter­day on the mat­ter.

When con­tact­ed for an up­date on Alexan­der’s ru­moured po­lice-to-pol­i­tics tran­si­tion, UNC chair­man and mem­ber of its se­lec­tion com­mit­tee Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said he could not con­firm that. 

“Well, you’re see­ing it and I’m see­ing it as well, but that’s not how can­di­dates are se­lect­ed,” Tan­coo said. 

Asked if Alexan­der was some­one be­ing con­sid­ered, Tan­coo said: “I have no fur­ther com­ment to make on it, my friend. The on­ly time a can­di­date is an­nounced is when the leader has an­nounced the can­di­date, but that has not hap­pened with re­gards to the Tu­na­puna seat.” 

On Mon­day the UNC and its Coali­tion of In­ter­ests an­nounced 22 prospec­tive can­di­dates for the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. This means there are 16 more avail­able prospec­tive can­di­dates. Nom­i­na­tion day is next Fri­day, and all can­di­dates must sub­mit their pa­pers if their names are to be on the bal­lot. 

The UNC’s 2020 can­di­date for the Tu­na­puna seat David Nakhid said he could not say who was se­lect­ed.

“I have no idea. I have no idea who was screened. I know I screened, but I have no idea who else was screened, to be hon­est. I have no idea. I don’t, I don’t pay at­ten­tion to those things. I, (am) busy about my work to make the East-West Cor­ri­dor a bet­ter place for my peo­ple. So, I re­al­ly, I don’t know. All those de­tails, you’ll have to ask the Na­tEx (na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive).” 

Asked if he saw Alexan­der dur­ing the Feb­ru­ary 17 screen­ing for Tu­na­puna seat, Nakhid said he did not no­tice the oth­er prospec­tive can­di­dates. 

“To be hon­est, I don’t know who was around. They said five peo­ple screened. If you ask me, Jensen, who was the oth­er four peo­ple be­sides my­self, I couldn’t tell you. 

“The on­ly time a can­di­date is an­nounced is when the leader has an­nounced the can­di­date, but that has not hap­pened with re­gards to the Tu­na­puna seat.” 

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to the in­cum­bent MP and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s prospec­tive can­di­date Es­mond Forde for a com­ment but calls and mes­sages went unan­swered. 

A post, be­lieved to be that of Health Min­is­ter and prospec­tive can­di­date for St Joseph, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, ques­tioned the UNC’s de­ci­sion in se­lect­ing Alexan­der. 

The post read: “Has the UNC re­sort­ed to per­sons with a ques­tion­able back­ground for can­di­dates? Is this the change they speak about? When UNC los­es, every­one WINS!” 

Alexan­der is not the first po­lice of­fi­cer to show an in­ter­est in mov­ing from a po­lice sta­tion to Par­lia­ment. In lead up to the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, then In­spec­tor Michael Seales re­tired and suc­cess­ful­ly screened for the Cou­va North seat with the PNM. 

While he was not suc­cess­ful in the polls, Seales was ap­point­ed as the chair­man of the Board of Di­rec­tors of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Cor­po­ra­tion. 

Ahead of the 2019 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, for­mer Ca­lyp­so Monarch and po­lice of­fi­cer, Du­ane O’Con­nor was se­lect­ed by the PNM to con­test the St Ann’s Riv­er South (Sea Lots area). The se­lec­tion was lat­er re­voked and he was sus­pend­ed from the TTPS for “par­ti­san­ship” and not de­clar­ing his po­lit­i­cal in­ten­tions.