Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy leader Jear­lean John has been se­lect­ed to con­test Cou­va North, David Lee has been shift­ed from Pointe-a-Pierre to con­test Ca­roni Cen­tral and ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Sean Sobers will con­test Tabaquite in­stead of Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne.

UNC MPs Arnold Ram and Ravi Rati­ram, the out­go­ing MPs for Ca­roni Cen­tral and Cou­va North, have al­so not been se­lect­ed for any seat.

En­vi­ron­men­tal ex­pert Shiv­ana Sam will con­test Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, for­mer­ly held by so-called “dis­si­dent” MP Dr Rai Rag­bir and Dr Col­in Neil Go­sein will con­test Ch­agua­nas West, for­mer­ly held by Ra­gir’s col­league Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly.

John, an out­go­ing UNC sen­a­tor, will be con­test­ing in heart­land Cou­va North, for­mer­ly held by out­go­ing MP Rati­ram.

Oropouche West MP Dave Tan­coo was shift­ed to con­test Fyz­abad and Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has been switched from Fyz­abad to con­test Tan­coo’s Oropouche West.

Hansen Nar­i­nesingh, who re­placed Lee in Clax­ton Bay (for­mer­ly PaP), is a chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said new Ch­agua­nas West can­di­date Go­sein—a for­mer UNC Sen­a­tor - was with the par­ty for over 30 years.

“Let’s thank all who put in nom­i­na­tions. I thank them and recog­nise and take the as­sur­ance there will be a space and place for every sin­gle body. Every­body wins when UNC wins, every­body wins.”

Mean­while, for­mer Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Kirt Sin­nette will con­test Port-of-Spain South with the UNC.

The changes were an­nounced by UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at last night’s An­ti-crime Town Hall Meet­ing at Cen­tre Point Mall, Ch­agua­nas.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that to­day will be Nom­i­na­tion Day for the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, when can­di­dates file their nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments with Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion of­fi­cers.

“Let not your heart be trou­bled, (Fri­day) all 39 can­di­dates of the UNC and coali­tion of in­ter­ests will file their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers as we go for­ward - then it would be on­ward to vic­to­ry,” she said.

Turn­ing her at­ten­tion to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Young and the PNM are giv­ing you hours of smears, in­sults and fake promis­es that they couldn’t im­ple­ment in ten years of Gov­ern­ment... hours of talk!”

She said a per­son is mur­dered every 16 hours in T&T, adding the State of Emer­gency will soon end.

“And what hap­pens then?” she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there have been about 5,000 mur­ders un­der the PNM Gov­ern­ment in10 years.

“The slaugh­ter con­tin­ues de­spite be­ing in an SoE ... PNM min­is­ters and their fam­i­lies roll around with blue lights and armed se­cu­ri­ty while you re­main un­pro­tect­ed.

“I give the com­mit­ment that with­in six months of re­turn­ing to gov­ern­ment, if there is no im­prove­ment in the ef­fi­cien­cies of the jus­tice sys­tem and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, I will give in­struc­tions to be­gin the re­duc­tion and re­moval of all tax­pay­er-fund­ed se­cu­ri­ty de­tails (both po­lice and pri­vate firms) of all those in au­thor­i­ty.”

She added, “If cit­i­zens must face crim­i­nals un­pro­tect­ed dai­ly, those in au­thor­i­ty will have to do the same if they can­not per­form their jobs. We can re­as­sign these un­nec­es­sary se­cu­ri­ty de­tails to fo­cus on ac­tu­al po­lice work. With no se­cu­ri­ty de­tails and no bus route pass, those in au­thor­i­ty and their fam­i­lies will face the same risks of crime and traf­fic as every­one else if they can­not per­form their du­ties—let them face what the peo­ple face every day.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so dis­missed Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s pro­posed tax-free pen­sions for pub­lic ser­vants.

“That fel­la shame­less!” she said, claim­ing he’d get $1 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in pen­sion if he served s PM.

UNC's GE can­di­dates:

ARANGUEZ/STJOSEPH: De­vish Ma­haraj

ARI­MA: Nigel Mose.

AROU­CA/LOPINOT: Dr Na­tal­ie Chai­tan Ma­haraj

BARATARIA/SAN JUAN: Sad­dam Ho­sein

CA­RONI CEN­TRAL: Dr David Lee

CA­RONI EAST: Dr Rishi Seecher­an

CH­AGUA­NAS EAST: Van­dana Mo­hit

CH­AGUA­NAS WEST: Dr Col­in Neil Go­sein

CLAX­TON BAY: Hansen Nar­i­nesingh

COU­VA SOUTH: Bar­ry Padarath

COU­VA NORTH: Jear­lean John

CU­MU­TO/MAN­ZANIL­LA: Shiv­ana Sam

DIEGO MAR­TIN CEN­TRAL: Ke­iron Thomas

DIEGO MAR­TIN NORTH EAST: Bren­dan Butts (PEP)

DIEGO MAR­TIN WEST: Janet Le­mand (PEP)

FYZ­ABAD: Dave Tan­coo

LA BREA: Clyde El­der

LA HOR­QUET­TA/TAL­PARO: Phillip Watts

LAVEN­TILLE EAST/MOR­VANT: Robert Mitchell

LAVEN­TILLE WEST: Rod­ney Stowe.

MAL­ABAR/MAU­SI­CA: Do­minic Smith

MA­YARO: Wil­fred Nicholas Mor­ris

MORU­GA/TABLE­LAND: Michelle Ben­jamin

NA­PARI­MA: Dr Narindra Roop­nar­ine

OROPOUCHE EAST: Dr Roodal Mooni­lal

OROPOUCHE WEST: Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe

POINT FORTIN: Ernesto Kezar (OW­TU)

PORT-OF-SPAIN NORTH/ST ANN'S WEST: Phillip Alexan­der (PEP)

PORT-OF-SPAIN SOUTH: Kirt Sin­nette (COP)

PRINCES TOWN: Dr Aiy­na Ali

SAN FER­NAN­DO EAST: John Michael Al­i­bo­cus

SAN FER­NAN­DO WEST: Dr Michael Dowlath

ST ANN'S EAST: Ger­ard Small (COP).

ST AU­GUS­TINE: Kadi­jah Ameen

TABAQUITE: Sean Sobers.

TO­CO/SAN­GRE GRANDE: Wayne Sturge

TRINCI­TY/MAL­ONEY: Richard Smith

TU­NA­PUNA: Roger Alexan­der

SIPARIA: Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar