Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Can­di­dates from po­lit­i­cal par­ties con­test­ing the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion will to­day (Tues) be of­fer­ing their nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments to the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) for pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion ahead of next week Fri­day’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cis­es.

The EBC an­nounced to­day’s pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion ex­er­cise in ad­ver­tise­ments.

The EBC’s no­tice on to­day's ex­er­cise, signed by EBC Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis, stat­ed, “In­ter­est­ed per­sons are kind­ly re­quest­ed to make use of this op­por­tu­ni­ty of­fered to them at the of­fices of the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer for the 41 Par­lia­men­tary elec­toral dis­tricts in T&T to min­imise the like­li­hood of dif­fi­cul­ties on Nom­i­na­tion Day."

The April 4 Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cise in­volves checks of can­di­dates’ doc­u­ments by EBC Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers to en­sure all doc­u­ments com­ply with the le­gal re­quire­ments to con­test the elec­tion. Nom­i­na­tion Day scruti­ny is done at the of­fices of all EBC Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers in the 41 con­stituen­cies. Sim­i­lar­ly, to­day’s pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion of nom­i­na­tion pa­pers will be done at all 41 EBC of­fices.

To­day’s ex­er­cise is from 9 am to noon. How­ev­er, sources said to­day’s ex­er­cise is not manda­to­ry.

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, con­tact­ed on whether the PNM would par­tic­i­pate in the ex­er­cise, said, “All 41 PNM can­di­dates are ready to par­tic­i­pate in the pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion of nom­i­na­tion pa­pers (on Tues­day).”

An­oth­er PNM spokesman said they were con­fi­dent the par­ty’s can­di­dates would meet the re­quire­ments and their nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments were all in or­der. They said for those can­di­dates who were un­able to go, their re­spec­tive elec­tion agent would like­ly deal with the mat­ter and the can­di­date would go in per­son on Nom­i­na­tion Day next week.

The UNC launched its elec­tion cam­paign last night in San Fer­nan­do but still did not name its full slate. The UNC, which is con­test­ing 39 ar­eas in Trinidad on­ly, has so far an­nounced 19 can­di­dates - in­clud­ing two from the OW­TU con­test­ing La Brea and Point Fortin.

The UNC's Coali­tion of In­ter­ests part­ner, the PEP, has three can­di­dates, in­clud­ing PEP leader Phillip Alexan­der in Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West con­test­ing against PNM in­cum­bent for that area Stu­art Young, now Prime Min­is­ter.

Alexan­der said he would be par­tic­i­pat­ing in to­day's EBC ex­er­cise.

On to­day's EBC ex­er­cise, UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo told Guardian Me­dia, "All named can­di­dates will have the op­tion to par­tic­i­pate. This is just a pre­lim­i­nary op­tion to check forms. The UNC has a cadre of high­ly trained, ex­pe­ri­enced and com­pe­tent of­fi­cials tasked with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure fullest com­pli­ance with the statu­to­ry re­quire­ments for every stage of the elec­tion process."

Al­so pre­sent­ing pa­pers to­day will be To­ba­go can­di­dates, in­clud­ing from the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA). IDA leader Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus said the IDA's can­di­dates be­ing launched to­day are Kaye Trot­man (Bed and Break­fast As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent) for To­ba­go West and en­tre­pre­neur Ger­ard Bal­four for To­ba­go East.

Al­so ex­pect­ed to be in to­day's ex­er­cise are TPP can­di­dates Joel Samp­son (To­ba­go West) and David Thomas (To­ba­go East), PDP's Wat­son Duke (To­ba­go East) and PDP To­ba­go West can­di­date Cur­tis Dou­glas and Uni­ty of the Peo­ple's can­di­dates.

EBC of­fi­cials said they are al­so pre­pared for any in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates who may come in to­day.