Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Elec­tion Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee (EMC) of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has an­nounced that nom­i­na­tion day for the par­ty’s Au­gust 17 lead­er­ship elec­tion is Ju­ly 27.

The EMC made the an­nounce­ment on Sun­day and al­so said that spe­cial vot­ing will take place on Au­gust 14.

The team, head­ed by vet­er­an at­tor­ney Ramesh Per­sad-Ma­haraj, al­so in­cludes for­mer cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Al­lan Sam­my and Mar­i­lyn Mar­tin. All three have served on pre­vi­ous UNC in­ter­nal elec­tion man­age­ment teams. Per­sad-Ma­haraj has head­ed such teams be­fore.

In the up­com­ing elec­tion, in­cum­bent UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be de­fend­ing the po­si­tion she has held since 2010. She has de­feat­ed four oth­ers in sim­i­lar elec­tions over the years and is ex­pect­ed to be the sole nom­i­nee on this oc­ca­sion.

The EMC has is­sued dates for ac­tiv­i­ties in­volved in the elec­tion.

Nom­i­na­tion forms were avail­able from yes­ter­day at UNC’s Ch­agua­nas head of­fice.

Sub­mis­sion of nom­i­na­tion pa­pers by prospec­tive can­di­dates is to be made to the EMC for ver­i­fi­ca­tion by 4 pm to­mor­row.

For the nom­i­na­tion dead­line on Ju­ly 27, cer­ti­fied nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments will be sub­mit­ted to the EMC at 4 pm.

The dead­line for with­draw­al as a can­di­date is Au­gust 4 at noon.

Valid­ly nom­i­nat­ed can­di­dates will be an­nounced on that date at 4 pm.

To­mor­row is al­so the dead­line for reg­is­tra­tion of mem­bers for the pur­pose of the elec­tion.

The pre­lim­i­nary list of vot­ers will be post­ed at UNC’s head of­fice from to­mor­row un­til Fri­day, from 9 am to 4 pm. Fri­day is al­so the dead­line to ap­ply for cor­rec­tions to the pre­lim­i­nary vot­ers’ list.

Ju­ly 27 is the dead­line for sub­mis­sion of ap­pli­ca­tions to be a spe­cial vot­er. The spe­cial vot­ers’ list will be post­ed on Au­gust 4.

Spe­cial vot­ing on Au­gust 14 will be from 8 am to 2 pm at UNC’s head of­fice.

Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of elec­tion re­sults will take place on Au­gust 22.