Gail Alexan­der

As the Op­po­si­tion, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), opens nom­i­na­tions to­day for its June 15 na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive (Na­tex) elec­tions, MP Rod­ney Charles says coun­cil­lors, al­der­men and MPs who’ve pub­licly in­di­cat­ed their sup­port of par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and ex­ist­ing ex­ec­u­tive shouldn’t be in­volved in elec­tion prepa­ra­tion process­es.

Sev­er­al in­cum­bent Na­tex of­fi­cers are ex­pect­ed to de­fend their posts—along with oth­ers sup­port­ing Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, who had called for the Na­tex poll in March.

While the nom­i­na­tions for in­ter­nal elec­tion open to­day, the UNC al­so opens nom­i­na­tions to­day for nom­i­nees for the June 17 by-elec­tions in Quinam-Morne Di­a­blo and Lengua In­di­an Walk.

The dead­line for Na­tex nom­i­na­tions is May 25 at 4 pm while the dead­line for the by-elec­tion nom­i­nees is this Fri­day.

Checks with some Na­tex in­cum­bents yes­ter­day in­di­cat­ed most will de­fend their posts.

MP Sad­dam Ho­sein, when asked about his re­search of­fi­cer post said, “If and when I file, I’ll be hap­py to let you know.”

On com­ments by Paray and oth­ers on the elec­tion be­ing called, Ho­sein said, “The po­lit­i­cal leader had clear­ly said the elec­tions would be called. Elec­tions were al­ways free and fair ... all are wel­come to con­test, we’re built on de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. I look for­ward to the elec­tions and a very healthy cam­paign­ing pe­ri­od.”

The cur­rent Na­tex, which was Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s slate, was elect­ed in 2022. Her term is up next year.

The par­ty con­firmed that of the 20 ex­ec­u­tive posts, 17 are up for con­test. Some, PRO and gen­er­al sec­re­tary, are ap­point­ed posts.

The fol­low­ing posts (held by in­cum­bents list­ed) are up for con­test. Deputy lead­ers (Roodal Mooni­lal, Jear­lean John, David Lee); chair­man (Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo); vice chair­man (Khadi­jah Ameen); ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer (Van­dana Mo­hit); re­search of­fi­cer (Sad­dam Ho­sein); elec­tions of­fi­cer (Don Sylvester); par­ty or­gan­is­er (Ravi Rati­ram); trea­sur­er (Neil Go­sine); pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy (Sean Sobers); in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions of­fi­cer (Nicholas Mor­ris); South re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive (Shan­ty Boodram); Cen­tral re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive (Bar­ry Padarath); North­west re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive (Eli Za­k­our); North­east re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive (Anil Roberts).

The To­ba­go Re­gion­al post has been va­cant since June 2023 af­ter then-of­fice hold­er Tahar­qa Obi­ka joined the PNM.

Charles said the Na­tex elec­tion would be the most im­por­tant for the UNC and for T&T’s fu­ture.

“I hope it will be con­duct­ed with the high­est lev­el of trans­paren­cy, best prac­tices in the con­duct of elec­tions, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and in­tegri­ty so that no slate will have a de­cid­ed ad­van­tage ... We must be the gold stan­dard for hold­ing elec­tions, on­ly then will the true will of UNC’s 300,000 mem­bers be known,” he said.

“Ide­al­ly, giv­en grave con­cerns by those who led slates in re­cent past in­ter­nal elec­tions, the elec­tions should be presided over by a su­per­vi­so­ry team com­pris­ing two nom­i­nees from each slate and a chair agree­able to both sides. This will au­gur well for trans­paren­cy and in­tegri­ty.”

He said just as UNC called for ex­ter­nal ob­servers in na­tion­al elec­tions, “it might be use­ful to have im­par­tial lo­cal bod­ies mon­i­tor this elec­tion”.

Charles al­so rec­om­mend­ed, “Al­der­men, coun­cil­lors and MPs who’ve pub­licly in­di­cat­ed their sup­port of UNC’s leader and ex­ist­ing ex­ec­u­tive through let­ters in the me­dia shouldn’t serve as pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers or de­ter­mine the lo­ca­tion of polling sta­tions.

“Mem­bers on slates/who pub­licly sup­port slates, must not be ac­tive­ly in­volved in the con­duct and man­age­ment of in­ter­nal elec­tions.”

He added, “Mem­bers who’ve sup­port­ed the par­ty should, if they wish and are in good stand­ing ac­cord­ing to UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion, be able to vote. Vot­er lists must be made avail­able (as EBC does) so mem­bers aren’t told on elec­tion day they’re ‘not on the list’ and can­not vote.”

Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir, who’d al­so called for Na­tex polls, said, “It’s a vic­to­ry for democ­ra­cy that Na­tex elec­tions have been called. There’s hope for our great par­ty and T&T. What­ev­er the out­come, we can­not un­der­score the need for us to un­der­score our con­sti­tu­tion and our lead­ers to lead by ex­am­ple.”

Lawyer heads

elec­tion com­mit­tee

The UNC yes­ter­day named at­tor­ney Dar­ryl Al­la­har to head its elec­tions man­age­ment com­mit­tee for the in­ter­nal elec­tion.

The team met yes­ter­day and is­sued the man­u­al and rules for the con­duct of the elec­tions, the par­ty said in a re­lease.

Oth­er com­mit­tee mem­bers are Jus­tice of the Peace Mar­i­lyn Mar­tin, who has been on the com­mit­tee on two pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions, and for­mer Pe­nal-Debe cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my.

The team was ap­point­ed by the par­ty’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive and will func­tion un­til the elec­tion is com­plet­ed and an ex­ec­u­tive is elect­ed.

Terms of ref­er­ence of the team in­clude scru­ti­n­is­ing and val­i­dat­ing nom­i­na­tion forms sub­mit­ted; an­nounc­ing the can­di­dates con­test­ing the po­si­tions; sourc­ing, se­cur­ing and al­lo­cat­ing per­son­nel and re­sources nec­es­sary for the ef­fi­cient and fair con­duct of the elec­tion on polling day; and ar­rang­ing for in­for­ma­tion/train­ing ses­sions for all elec­tion per­son­nel—in­clu­sive of can­di­dates and their agents. The team is al­so re­spon­si­ble for se­cur­ing all bal­lots (used and un­used), bal­lot box­es and oth­er elec­tion ma­te­r­i­al be­fore, dur­ing and at the close of polling for re­quests of re­counts and for oth­er re­quests if nec­es­sary. They will al­so an­nounce re­sults.