Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front, Mick­ela Pan­day, says the par­ty has been “bom­bard­ed” with peo­ple will­ing to con­test seats on its be­half in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pan­day said while she is open to form­ing a part­ner­ship with oth­er po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties, the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front’s fo­cus is on the screen­ing process.

On Sun­day, the par­ty named sev­en can­di­dates who will be con­test­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion: Aretha Paula Clarke for To­ba­go West, Ani­ta Mar­garet Han­key for Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca, Thel­ston Ja­goo for Clax­ton Bay, Sacha Man­groo for Princes Town, Ken­rick Ser­rette for San Fer­nan­do East, Va­lene Teelucks­ingh for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and Eliz­a­beth Whar­ton for To­co/San­gre Grande.

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front was formed in 2019 by Pan­day to con­test the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, but she lat­er said the par­ty would not be ready in time for that elec­tion.

The par­ty was formed with the mantra of of­fer­ing a new style of pol­i­tics, and its mis­sion is to bring pow­er back to the peo­ple.

Yes­ter­day, Pan­day said peo­ple seek­ing to en­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tive pol­i­tics un­der a Pa­tri­ot­ic Front ban­ner have been over­whelm­ing.

“The next set of can­di­dates will be com­ing soon, we did have a time lim­it for the process but we have been bom­bard­ed with nom­i­na­tions and I think it is fair that peo­ple who sub­mit nom­i­na­tions get a fair chance to be in­ter­viewed.”

She said the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front is com­mit­ted to field­ing can­di­dates for all 41 con­stituen­cies.

But while the fo­cus is on screen­ing, Pan­day, the daugh­ter of for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, who died last year, said she had not been ap­proached by the op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to form an al­liance to con­test the up­com­ing elec­tion.

Pan­day main­tained that while a part­ner­ship is not off the ta­ble, all en­ti­ties in­volved in an al­liance must have the same fo­cus.

“You can’t preach uni­ty and close doors. We are will­ing to lis­ten to and speak with peo­ple, but we have al­ways said that we must all want the same thing and that any­body you speak with must want the same and must be will­ing to put coun­try first and be­fore self.

“No one has ap­proached us and I’m sure you’re ask­ing if the UNC has, no,” she ex­plained.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pre­vi­ous­ly turned down uni­ty talks with Pan­day, whose fa­ther was the found­ing mem­ber and for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.