Ahead of next week’s 2020 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, the rul­ing PNM, Op­po­si­tion UNC, MSJ and COP are this week com­plet­ing out­stand­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment screen­ings and a par­ty formed by for­mer PN­Mite Louis Lee Sing is al­so fi­nal­is­ing prepa­ra­tions.

Lead of­fi­cials of the re­spec­tive par­ties con­firmed this yes­ter­day.

The for­mer Port-of-Spain May­or said his group—com­pris­ing for­mer coun­cil­lors and mem­bers of PNM, UNC, NJAC—are sole­ly tar­get­ing PNM’s strong­hold of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion.

The ex-PN­Mite Lee Sing said yes­ter­day his group is “ex­plor­ing” the sit­u­a­tion.

He added that po­lit­i­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion is cur­rent­ly with the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion. He de­clined to give the en­ti­ty’s name un­til spe­cif­ic as­pects are com­plet­ed with the EBC. Lee Sing added the group is on­ly con­test­ing the cap­i­tal city’s cor­po­ra­tion which has 12 seats.

“We’re a group of con­cerned Port-of-Spain peo­ple, some for­mer PN­Mites, NJAC, UNC, in­clud­ing a for­mer UNC coun­cil­lor and for­mer PNM coun­cil­lors all from that cor­po­ra­tion,” he said.

Lee Sing said for­mer PNM fi­nancier Har­ry Ra­goo­nanan and ex-min­is­ter Mar­i­ano Browne are not with his team.

“Our group’s meet­ing for just over a year. Peo­ple are very, very dis­sat­is­fied with what’s pass­ing for gov­er­nance in TT. We ex­pect to in­tro­duce can­di­dates in the next week or two in POS and are putting can­di­dates in the field.”

How­ev­er, he de­clined to con­firm if he is lead­ing the new par­ty.

“We’re hav­ing a dif­fer­ent struc­ture in terms of lead­er­ship, it’s be­ing worked out now, “Lee Sing said.

Asked about fight­ing PNM’s POS cam­paign—which is head­ed by Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald—Lee Sing added,” There’ll be no fight.

Mean­while, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment—PNM—Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress—UNC—lead­er­ship of­fi­cials—who nor­mal­ly spear­head their par­ties’ screen­ings—will be tak­en up with Bud­get de­bate af­ter next Mon­day’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion. De­bate takes al­most three weeks due to dis­cus­sions in the Low­er and Up­per Hous­es of Par­lia­ment and by the Low­er House’s Fi­nance Com­mit­tee. The de­liv­ery of the bud­get fol­lows to­mor­row’s open­ing of Par­lia­ment’s fifth and fi­nal ses­sion.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls are due af­ter No­vem­ber 28—when the cur­rent term ends—and up to three months af­ter.

In Ju­ly, Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley dis­missed claims it might be post­poned, say­ing it would be held in the “ap­pro­pri­ate time­frame.” A Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion date is ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced at the PNM’s 49th con­ven­tion be­ing held on No­vem­ber 10 at the Queens’ Park Sa­van­nah. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment can­di­dates will be pre­sent­ed then.

Thus far PNM sources have tipped the pos­si­ble elec­tion date as ear­ly De­cem­ber and said it could be held any­where from the 2, 9 or 16 at the very lat­est.

PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Lau­ren Leza­ma-Lee Sing said the par­ty has se­lect­ed can­di­dates for most cor­po­ra­tions. On Thurs­day and Fri­day, the PNM will com­plete screen­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25 out­stand­ing ar­eas in north, cen­tral and south.

Nom­i­nees be­ing screened Thurs­day will be for ar­eas in Ch­agua­nas Cou­va, Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and oth­ers. The screen­ing will be com­plet­ed Fri­day for nom­i­nees in Pe­nal/Debe and Princes Town.

And the UNC has se­lect­ed can­di­dates for most ar­eas, but must still de­cide on peo­ple for about 20 ar­eas in­clud­ing Ma­yaro and San­gre Grande, UNC deputy leader David Lee said yes­ter­day.

Lee con­firmed the UNC has not yet de­cid­ed on a can­di­date for the seat of re­cent­ly charged Ma­yaro cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Glen Ram. Ram sub­mit­ted nom­i­na­tion pa­pers for the seat months be­fore be­ing charged but did not with­draw them af­ter his le­gal mat­ter. Calls were made for him to be re­moved as chair­man.

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah said the MSJ will present a full slate for some main ar­eas as well lim­it­ed num­bers in oth­ers, “We’re prepar­ing for polls this year,” he said. Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said COP’s nom­i­nees are main­ly for the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co ar­eas. She said the COP has not start­ed screen­ing, “We’re sup­posed to be get­ting on with that this week.”

In the 2016 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment poll, PNM won 83 of the 137 seats in the 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions and UNC 54.