Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer Moru­ga-Table­land MP Dr Lovell Fran­cis has writ­ten the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's Moru­ga-Table­land par­ty group chair­men, ex­press­ing will­ing­ness to be con­sid­ered for nom­i­na­tion for gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­da­cy in that con­stituen­cy.

This, as the PNM's Moru­ga-Table­land ex­ec­u­tive and eight oth­er con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tives are a week away from their man­dat­ed Ju­ly 15 dead­line of sub­mit­ting their nom­i­nees to the par­ty.

Fran­cis' let­ter to par­ty group chair­men was sent on Ju­ly 28. He is among five per­sons who have ex­pressed in­ter­est in con­test­ing Moru­ga -Table­land, which is seen as a key area in the elec­tion ahead.

The PNM is fo­cus­ing heav­i­ly on Moru­ga-Table­land af­ter mak­ing in­roads in the UNC-held seat in the Au­gust 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions and sub­se­quent­ly hav­ing its suc­cess there re­in­forced by vic­to­ry in the June Lengua-In­di­an Walk by-elec­tion. The PNM's Aut­ley Granthume won Lengua- In­di­an Walk both times.

Moru­ga-Table­land and eight oth­er con­stituen­cies are cur­rent­ly fi­nal­is­ing GE nom­i­nees af­ter be­ing man­dat­ed by the PNM's Gen­er­al Coun­cil in June to be­gin search­ing for nom­i­nees.

The ar­eas are Ma­yaro, Moru­ga-Table­land, Fyz­abad, Barataria/San Juan, Ch­agua­nas East, Ca­roni East, St Au­gus­tine and Pointe-a-Pierre. Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la was sub­se­quent­ly added.

Last month, the Gen­er­al Coun­cil ad­vised units to sub­mit their nom­i­nees by Au­gust 15.

The in­struc­tion to seek nom­i­nees so far on­ly in­volves these nine Op­po­si­tion-held con­stituen­cies. An­oth­er batch will be done af­ter they're dealt with.

Each of the units have re­ceived three to five ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from per­sons wish­ing to con­test. This was con­firmed by of­fi­cials in the ar­eas.

In Moru­ga-Table­land, of­fi­cials said there are about five peo­ple who have ex­pressed in­ter­est and some gave con­sent.

Ex-MP Fran­cis' Ju­ly 28 let­ter to PNM par­ty group chair­men stat­ed, "This let­ter serves as for­mal no­tice of my will­ing­ness to be con­sid­ered for nom­i­na­tion by your par­ty group to be screened by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Screen­ing com­mit­tee in or­der to con­test the Moru­ga-Table­land con­stituen­cy seat in the forth­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions."

Fran­cis didn't an­swer Guardian Me­dia's calls yes­ter­day.

Fran­cis was Moru­ga-Table­land MP over 2015 to 2020. In May 2020, pri­or to the Au­gust 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, Fran­cis, an­nounced he wouldn’t be re­turn­ing as the can­di­date.

There was spec­u­la­tion that he didn't find favour with the PNM's screen­ing team, that there had been dis­ap­point­ment the seat had be­come more mar­gin­al and frag­ment­ed, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive num­bers had de­clined and there were is­sues be­tween Fran­cis and the then-con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive. Par­ty groups re­port­ed­ly didn't sup­port his nom­i­na­tion then.

There were al­most 30 par­ty groups in 2020. The num­ber has since in­creased.

Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters con­test­ed the seat in 2020, los­ing to UNC's Michelle Ben­jamin. Fran­cis was ap­point­ed T&T's High Com­mis­sion­er to South Africa in Au­gust 2021

On Tues­day, Moru­ga PN­Mites said Fran­cis will face stiff com­pe­ti­tion from oth­ers who have ex­pressed in­ter­est in con­test­ing and giv­en con­sent - par­tic­u­lar­ly sec­ondary school teacher Lisa At­wa­ter.

Of­fi­cials said she was among those spear­head­ing the PNM's suc­cess­ful Lengua- In­di­an Walk cam­paign which re­turned PNM to a place on the UNC-con­trolled Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion. At­wa­ter sub­mit­ted a Ju­ly 26 let­ter seek­ing nom­i­na­tion and has been en­dorsed by the area's Merikin Com­mis­sion.

In­ter­est has al­so been sig­nalled by Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help di­rec­tor Kerneisha Prince-King and the son of a for­mer (de­ceased) PNM of­fi­cial and a fe­male ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cial. Screen­ing by the ex­ec­u­tive is be­ing fi­nalised for sub­se­quent sub­mis­sion of nom­i­na­tions.

Four eye Ma­yaro, Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la

PNM’s Ma­yaro ex­ec­u­tive was meet­ing this week to con­sid­er the names of four per­sons who have ex­pressed in­ter­est in con­test­ing.

They in­volve a busi­ness­man who’d lost the seat in elec­tions be­fore and three fresh faces - a male oil­field of­fi­cial and two fe­males in law and ac­count­ing.

In Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la, four peo­ple have ex­pressed in­ter­est in nom­i­na­tion but no let­ters of con­sent have been re­ceived. All new faces, they are a re­tired pi­lot, a busi­ness­man, a farmer and a teacher.

Ma­yaro and Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la are par­tic­u­lar­ly tar­get­ted by PNM af­ter the UNC ex­pe­ri­enced some di­vi­sions when its Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray and Cu­mu­to MP Dr Rai Rag­bir con­test­ed UNC's June 15 in­ter­nal elec­tions on Paray's Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate. They lost.

Rag­bir is fur­ther in UNC's "bad books" af­ter break­ing ranks in June and vot­ing with the Gov­ern­ment on the Whistle­blow­er bill.

The PNM's Pointe-a-Pierre ex­ec­u­tive has re­ceived four ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est, of­fi­cials said - two sports­men - one of whom rep­re­sent­ed T&T in track and field - and two busi­ness­men.

Fyz­abad’s PNM ex­ec­u­tive has re­ceived four ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est, it's un­der­stood. There's been word of three per­sons ex­press­ing in­ter­est in Barataria/San Juan and Ch­agua­nas East (in­clud­ing a gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial), and sim­i­lar num­bers in St Au­gus­tine and Ca­roni East.