Gail Alexan­der

The PNM’s Laven­tille West Women’s League will meet again next Thurs­day re­gard­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­na­tion for the con­stituen­cy’s seat, af­ter Mon­day’s meet­ing of mem­bers which end­ed with “ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.”

The date for the sec­ond meet­ing was con­firmed yes­ter­day by PNM Laven­tille West ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials.

This is af­ter the ex­ec­u­tive’s state­ment on Wednes­day man­dat­ed the sec­ond con­stituen­cy women’s league meet­ing, not­ing that the meet­ing held on Mon­day by the league had “ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties,” as well as the fact that all units of the con­stituen­cy were not in­formed by due no­tice of the meet­ing.

A clip of the Laven­tille West Women’s League meet­ing was leaked show­ing vot­ing on the nom­i­na­tion of in­cum­bent MP Fitzger­ald Hinds for the can­di­da­cy. The clip showed on­ly one per­son sup­port­ing him. In­for­ma­tion leaked from the meet­ing al­so in­di­cat­ed that 38 vot­ed for an­oth­er nom­i­nee, at­tor­ney and Port-of-Spain Al­der­man Ka­reem Mar­celle, and three peo­ple ab­stained.

The Laven­tille West ex­ec­u­tive’s state­ment said that fail­ure to com­mu­ni­cate with the wider mem­ber­ship of the con­stituen­cy on the Women’s League meet­ing posed a “se­ri­ous threat” and had un­der­mined the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry process and democ­ra­cy the PNM is known for.

It was stat­ed that the unit chair­man and La­dy Vice chair­man of the con­stituen­cy, there­fore, ad­vised that a prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed meet­ing be held to en­sure all Laven­tille West units are in­formed of it.

Yes­ter­day, ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials con­firmed the No­vem­ber 7 date for the meet­ing, adding all PNM Laven­tille West units will be no­ti­fied of it and can, there­fore, send rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Hinds has re­mained mum on the de­vel­op­ment. Mar­celle hasn’t com­ment­ed on the sit­u­a­tion or his de­ci­sion to con­sent to be nom­i­nat­ed.

On Mon­day, the Laven­tille West ex­ec­u­tive had in­di­cat­ed to mem­bers that Hinds, Mar­celle and Dr Kadelle Jes­samy had con­sent­ed to be nom­i­nat­ed. Hinds was nom­i­nat­ed by Par­ty Group 96 and Jes­samy by Par­ty Group 25.

Ac­tivists said the LW Youth League, which meets this week­end, is ex­pect­ed to sup­port Mar­celle.

The de­vel­op­ment oc­curred amid PNM’s Oc­to­ber 21 call for nom­i­na­tions for 15 con­stituen­cies where it has MPs. That in­cludes Laven­tille West. The dead­line for the 15 con­stituen­cies is mid-month. Con­stituen­cy units have been in the process of re­ceiv­ing nom­i­na­tions with all in­cum­bents seek­ing to con­test again.

Laven­tille West has giv­en its units a dead­line of next Fri­day for nom­i­na­tions.

Mean­while, af­ter Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is sub­mit­ted a nom­i­na­tion for that seat, for­mer area MP from 2007 to 2015 Ali­cia Hospedales, is al­so seek­ing nom­i­na­tion there, of­fi­cials said. Hospedales un­suc­cess­ful­ly sought nom­i­na­tion for Lopinot Bon Air West for the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions. In­stead, that seat was con­test­ed by Mar­vin Gon­za­les, now Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter. Hospedales was un­avail­able for com­ment yes­ter­day.

Al­so, yes­ter­day, PNM La Brea ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials said so far, nom­i­na­tion has on­ly been re­ceived from MP Stephen Mclashie, “and the area has no prob­lem with him, he’s work­ing and de­liv­er­ing.” The con­stituen­cy has 29 PNM par­ty groups. Unit chair­man Jemel Pierre didn’t an­swer calls.

Ex-min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte, who un­suc­cess­ful­ly sought the can­di­da­cy in 2020, said he’s get­ting calls to seek the can­di­da­cy for the seat again but hasn’t de­cid­ed and con­tin­ued to weigh his op­tions. He said he’s out of T&T at the mo­ment.