KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds wants to move past all the “bac­cha­nal” in his con­stituen­cy ahead of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) screen­ing card­ed for Mon­day.

Speak­ing out for the first time since the con­tro­ver­sy over his can­di­da­cy af­ter a leaked video from the par­ty’s Laven­tille West Women’s League showed the ma­jor­i­ty in the room sup­port­ing Port-of-Spain al­der­man Ka­reem Mar­celle to be the can­di­date last month, Hinds said he’s look­ing for­ward to the screen­ing process.

Ear­li­er this month af­ter a sec­ond meet­ing, the ma­jor­i­ty of the women’s league mem­bers vot­ed in sup­port of Mar­celle 106 to the 78 Hinds re­ceived.

How­ev­er, the PNM’s Laven­tille West con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive is back­ing Hinds as its nom­i­nee since he has the sup­port of all par­ty groups, with the ex­cep­tion of the women’s league.

The de­ci­sion was made fol­low­ing a meet­ing last Fri­day.

Laven­tille West will be the first con­stituen­cy to face the PNM’s Screen­ing Com­mit­tee led by the par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal leader, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Hinds said he con­tin­ues to have the ap­proval of many in the con­stituen­cy.

“There are 37 par­ty leagues in my sup­port as well as the youth league. The con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive has giv­en me re­sound­ing sup­port. These are or­di­nary peo­ple from the var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties around the con­stituen­cy. In ad­di­tion to that, I would have been in­ter­fac­ing with the peo­ple of Laven­tille West for a num­ber of years. The sup­port is very, very present,” he said.

He said he had moved for­ward and would not be dis­tract­ed.

“There’s al­ways a lot of talk. I don’t dwell in that murky world. We have been past that process and now we are at the point where screen­ing is ahead of us, so let’s look for­ward to that in the usu­al, dig­ni­fied PNM way and don’t al­low our­selves to be dis­tract­ed with past bac­cha­nal and scan­dal. We could live with­out that. This is se­ri­ous busi­ness rep­re­sent­ing peo­ple, form­ing a gov­ern­ment, lead­ing the coun­try.”

As for the oth­er hope­fuls wish­ing to con­test the seat for the PNM, Mar­celle and Dr Kadelle Jes­samy, Hinds said he’s al­ways had com­pe­ti­tion while screen­ing.

“I have no re­call of ever pre­sent­ing my­self as a can­di­date with­out some com­pe­ti­tion. Over the many years since I’ve par­tic­i­pat­ed in this process, I’ve gone to screen­ing with com­pe­ti­tion. On this oc­ca­sion it will be no dif­fer­ent so we will wait to see the out­come of this screen­ing process,” he added.

Hinds has been the MP for the area since 2015.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to Mar­celle, but he de­clined to com­ment at the time.

The PNM will be screen­ing can­di­dates for a to­tal of 15 con­stituen­cies on De­cem­ber 2 at its Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters.