Sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Princes Town con­stituen­cy has a new face for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, as den­tist Dr Aiy­na Ali has been cho­sen by the UNC ex­ec­u­tive to con­test the safe seat.

She re­places Bar­ry Padarath who served Princes Town for ten years but has been shift­ed to con­test the Cou­va South seat pre­vi­ous­ly held by long-stand­ing UNC MP and shad­ow Labour Min­is­ter Rudranath In­dars­ingh.

The an­nounce­ment came from UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who a day ear­li­er de­nied that In­dars­ingh was be­ing re­placed while be­ing in­ter­viewed at the Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions in Moru­ga.

How­ev­er, ad­dress­ing Eid cel­e­bra­tions at the Per­ry Young Mosque recre­ation ground in Fair­field, Princes Town, yes­ter­day morn­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that In­dars­ingh had been re­placed by Padarath as she sought to quell con­cerns about dis­cord with­in the par­ty.

“I think my par­ty has made a very im­por­tant de­ci­sion. We say farewell to Princes Town on be­half of Padarath, who is to be moved from Princes Town to serve the par­ty in an­oth­er ca­pac­i­ty—to serve the par­ty in Cou­va South.

“I in­tro­duce Dr (Aiy­na) Ali, who will take his place in Princes Town. We have our in­com­ing MP Michelle Ben­jamin for Moru­ga/Table­land, so we are poised on track to win this thing,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said dur­ing an in­ter­view with re­porters.

She al­so dis­missed claims of in­ter­nal par­ty dis­putes, em­pha­siz­ing that the ma­jor­i­ty of UNC sup­port­ers are sat­is­fied with the can­di­dates se­lect­ed for the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tions.

“There will al­ways be dis­con­tent­ment—peo­ple who are not hap­py. Not even the Good Lord will make every­one con­tent­ed, and cer­tain­ly, I am nowhere near the Good Lord. For now, the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple are con­tent­ed. I try my best to do my best for all the peo­ple of the land,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

De­fend­ing the de­ci­sion to in­tro­duce new can­di­dates so late in the elec­tion race, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “We need new faces, and we need new voic­es. We need new tal­ent. Whether strate­gic or not, it’s a good thing to do.”

Asked whether Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram and Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee will be re­placed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said more an­nounce­ments will be made in the com­ing days.

“We are still in dis­cus­sions, and when those dis­cus­sions are over, we will let you know. We still have some days to go, and it’s not that we are not ready. We are do­ing the best that we can for every­body.”

How­ev­er, the re­place­ment of In­dars­ingh has prompt­ed the ex­ec­u­tive of the UNC’s Cou­va South to re­quest an ur­gent meet­ing with the par­ty’s lead­er­ship.

Par­ty in­sid­ers told Guardian Me­dia the ex­ec­u­tive is yet to get a re­sponse to an email they sent. When con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Shar­ma Sook­nanan, a mem­bers of the Cou­va South ex­ec­u­tive, said he pre­ferred not to speak on the is­sue or re­veal any­thing fur­ther

The prospec­tive Princes Town can­di­date, who is en­ter­ing pol­i­tics for the first time, ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the UNC lead­er­ship.

“I’m a new can­di­date, and I am look­ing for­ward to it. I have big shoes to fill,” she said look­ing to­wards her pre­de­ces­sor, Padarath.

Asked if she saw her lack of po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence and late en­try in­to the elec­toral race as a dis­ad­van­tage, she replied, “Dis­ad­van­tage isn’t the right word. It’s go­ing to be a lot, but I am ca­pa­ble, and I have every­one with me. So­cial me­dia is the way to go, and I in­tend to use so­cial me­dia to get to know peo­ple.”

Padarath said he will men­tor Ali.

“I am elat­ed that we have a qual­i­ty can­di­date who will bring a fresh per­spec­tive, new ideas, and en­er­gy,” he said.

He dis­missed sug­ges­tions that the sud­den change could cre­ate con­fu­sion among vot­ers.

“Our elec­torate is ed­u­cat­ed, and in Princes Town we had the chal­lenge of the PNM bandy­ing about that there wasn’t enough time. When I was cho­sen, I had two weeks to mount a cam­paign. Aiy­na has a few more weeks ahead, and she un­der­stands the de­mo­graph­ics and chal­lenges in the con­stituen­cy and will put for­ward so­lu­tions.”

Padarath as­sured that the struc­tured net­work in Princes Town would al­low for a seam­less tran­si­tion.

“I am sat­is­fied that she will hit the ground run­ning. Her fam­i­ly is well known in the Is­lam­ic com­mu­ni­ty, and this is a cel­e­bra­tion,” Padarath said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­ter­ject­ed say­ing: “ There is a space and place for every­one. If some­one is an out­go­ing per­son—un­less, by their own ac­tions, they be­have in a cer­tain way—we have to join to­geth­er and bring this thing. We have a space and place for every­one at the ta­ble in the house of the UNC.”