Gail Alexan­der

There have been changes—ad­di­tions and re­movals—on the in­cum­bent UNC Star slate which is con­test­ing the June 15 na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions against Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots (UP) slate.

This, af­ter the full num­ber of can­di­dates was of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced by the UNC’s Elec­tion Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee yes­ter­day.

The list showed 35 can­di­dates for the 17 posts: 17 can­di­dates from the Star Slate and 17 from the UP slate, plus busi­ness­man Robert Amar con­test­ing one of the three deputy leader posts.

The changes were al­so pre­sent­ed by the Star team, sup­port­ed by par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, when they held a pub­lic meet­ing at Sig­na­ture Hall, Ch­agua­nas, last night.

While this is the first time the UP slate is con­test­ing, the Star team of in­cum­bents seek­ing to re­tain con­trol of the ex­ec­u­tive has been changed in cer­tain ar­eas.

On­ly about sev­en Star in­cum­bents are con­test­ing the posts they won in the 2022 Na­tex polls—the three deputy lead­ers, the chair­man, and south and north-west re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions of­fi­cer.

There are now al­so sev­er­al new faces on the slate who were not elect­ed in 2022—busi­ness­man/for­mer Nipdec chair­man Ham­lyn Jailal, San Fer­nan­do cor­po­ra­tion alder­woman/busi­ness­woman Vil­liana Ra­moutars­ingh, Ken­wyn Phillip and MP Arnold Ram.

No longer on the slate are Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts (out­go­ing north-east re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive), Neil Go­sein (out­go­ing trea­sur­er) and Don Sylvester (out­go­ing elec­tions of­fi­cer).

In the “reshuf­fle”, MP Khadi­jah Ameen, who was vice chair­man, re­places Roberts to con­test as north-east re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Jailal is con­test­ing deputy chair­man in Ameen’s place.

Ra­moutars­ingh, who is con­test­ing as trea­sur­er, re­places Go­sine.

MP Bar­ry Padarath, who is the out­go­ing Cen­tral re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive, is con­test­ing as par­ty or­gan­is­er in­stead of MP Ravi Rati­ram, who is out­go­ing par­ty or­gan­is­er. Rati­ram is seek­ing to be ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer.

MP Van­dana Mo­hit, who was ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer, is con­test­ing as Cen­tral re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

MP Sad­dam Ho­sein, who is re­search of­fi­cer, is con­test­ing pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy of­fi­cer. In­cum­bent for the lat­ter post, Sean Sobers, is al­so con­test­ing as re­search of­fi­cer.

MP Ram is con­test­ing the elec­tions of­fi­cer post, which was held by Sylvester. Phillip is con­test­ing the post of To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive.