Sto­ry by RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Jack Warn­er is back in T&T pol­i­tics and is ex­pect­ed to make his can­di­da­cy of­fi­cial lat­er on Fri­day af­ter­noon, as he shares why he chose to re­turn to the po­lit­i­cal are­na.

Warn­er will be hold­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at about 3 pm, at which time he will make of­fi­cial his can­di­da­cy for the con­stituen­cy of Lopinot/Bon Air West, in the up­com­ing 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, on Au­gust 10th.

The me­dia con­fer­ence will take place at his con­stituen­cy of­fice, at #135 East­ern Main Road, Arou­ca.

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease is­sued by his par­ty—the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP)—Warn­er will take a mo­ment to speak on the du­ty of a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and his per­for­mance as a past Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, which he de­scribes as “ex­em­plary”, “so much so that even to­day his views and ad­vice con­tin­ue to be sought”.

“This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for you to hear his rea­sons for choos­ing to re­turn to elec­toral pol­i­tics and share a bit on his vi­sion, goals and strate­gies,” the re­lease stat­ed.

77-year-old Warn­er is ex­pect­ed to file his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers on Fri­day morn­ing un­der the ILP, which he found­ed in 2013, af­ter break­ing away from the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship.

Elec­tions record

Warn­er was elect­ed Ch­agua­nas West MP in 2010, un­der the PP, and won the seat again in 2013 in a by-elec­tion as the ILP can­di­date, which he trig­gered when he re­signed the seat af­ter he was fired by Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Warn­er, lost the Ch­agua­nas West seat in 2015 to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' Gan­ga Singh.

FI­FA trou­bles

Warn­er is cur­rent­ly fight­ing ex­tra­di­tion to the US on al­leged cor­rup­tion charges that stem from his role as vice pres­i­dent of FI­FA.

He was im­pli­cat­ed in a bribery scan­dal and sus­pend­ed by FI­FA be­fore re­sign­ing in 2011.

In 2013, a Con­ca­caf in­tegri­ty re­port claimed Warn­er had com­mit­ted fraud and the then prime min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar fired him over the al­le­ga­tions.

In 2015, Warn­er (along with sev­er­al oth­er FI­FA of­fi­cials who were ar­rest­ed in Zurich be­fore the an­nu­al FI­FA Con­gress) was charged in the Unit­ed States with "wire fraud, rack­e­teer­ing, and mon­ey laun­der­ing."

FI­FA al­so banned him for life.

In April this year, Warn­er dis­missed an As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­port on new de­tails of the al­leged bribes, in­clud­ing that he re­ceived US$5 mil­lion to sup­port Rus­sia's win­ning bid for the 2018 World Cup.

The US in­dict­ment al­so ac­cus­es Warn­er and oth­er for­mer FI­FA ex­ec­u­tives of com­mit­ting fraud to se­cure votes for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.