Gail Alexan­der

Car­ni­val at­mos­phere with no heed for COVID cau­tion!

That was how yes­ter­day’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cis­es for Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­dates went down in a num­ber of con­stituen­cies.

By the end of the day when crowds dis­persed, it was es­ti­mat­ed that 14-plus par­ties and over 136 can­di­dates will be con­test­ing the Au­gust 10 elec­tion.

And one of the biggest con­tests will be in San Fer­nan­do West where there’s a five-way fight.

Can­di­dates con­test­ing the elec­tion filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers with the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s re­turn­ing of­fi­cers from the 41 con­stituen­cies. Can­di­dates al­so each paid the re­quired $5,000 de­posit.

The EBC’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Di­vi­sion stat­ed last night that the of­fi­cial num­ber of par­ties and can­di­dates would be re­leased to­day.

In yes­ter­day’s ex­er­cise, many can­di­dates were ac­com­pa­nied to re­turn­ing of­fi­cers’ lo­ca­tions by groups of en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers in re­spec­tive par­ty colours, mu­sic trucks, African drums, tas­sa and rhythm sec­tions.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress flags and colours over­lapped in some places where the num­bers were thick.

But the ac­tiv­i­ty was al­most all mi­nus masks and sans so­cial dis­tanc­ing re­quired by COVID reg­u­la­tions. This al­though the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry had is­sued a no­tice on Thurs­day alert­ing the pub­lic and po­lit­i­cal par­ties to heed COVID reg­u­la­tions. That in­clud­ed lim­it­ing gath­er­ings to 25. How­ev­er, fig­ures be­yond 25 were seen at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s en­tourage in Diego Mar­tin West was ac­com­pa­nied by a mu­sic truck. Row­ley yes­ter­day ac­cused Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of mak­ing racial­ly charged re­marks about him at a UNC meet­ing on Thurs­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in Siparia was es­cort­ed by tas­sa and danc­ing sup­port­ers. She re­ject­ed con­cerns about Cou­va North can­di­date Ravi Rati­ram and de­nied he’d been with­drawn ear­li­er yes­ter­day.

In St Joseph, PNM’s Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, head­ing to file his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers, was seen en­er­get­i­cal­ly beat­ing tas­sa amid the noisy throng.

In Oropouche East, UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal was ac­com­pa­nied by a fur­ry-suit­ed li­on mas­cot and vin­tage bright yel­low car.

On­ly PNM with full slate

The rul­ing PNM is the on­ly par­ty which pro­duced the full slate of 41 can­di­dates.

PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing con­firmed that all 41 can­di­dates com­plet­ed fil­ing pa­pers by mid­day with­out prob­lems.

UNC PRO Ani­ta Haynes said all their can­di­dates al­so com­plet­ed the process. The UNC is on­ly field­ing can­di­dates for the 39 Trinidad con­stituen­cies—and not To­ba­go. The par­ty on Thurs­day mount­ed a uni­ty call for oth­er par­ties op­posed to the PNM to unite with the UNC but sev­er­al par­ties gave that the cold shoul­der yes­ter­day.

An elec­tion agent filed doc­u­ments for UNC’s quar­an­tined Princes Town in­cum­bent Bar­ry Padarath. He said he’ll be out on the cam­paign trail very soon.

In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty leader Jack Warn­er filed nom­i­na­tion for Lopinot/Bon Air West—mak­ing it a three-way fight there with PNM and UNC. It’s his re­turn to elec­toral pol­i­tics since 2014 but he’d been in­volved with ILP all the while since then.

Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said four of their five can­di­dates were ap­proved. A fifth, An­tho­ny de Four (PoS North), didn’t get through.

Checks in­di­cat­ed that the biggest fight will be in San Fer­nan­do West where there is a five-way race among PNM, UNC, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty, Pro­gres­sives and Na­tion­al Par­ty can­di­dates.

Among oth­er mar­gin­als - pend­ing EBC fi­nal fig­ures - the race is ex­pect­ed to stand as the fol­low­ing: To­co/San­gre Grande (PNM/UNC), St Joseph (PNM/UNC/In­de­pen­dents), San Juan Barataria (PNM/UNC/ PEP).

There’s a three-way fight in To­ba­go East and a five-way race in To­ba­go West.

There may al­so be a four-way fight in St Au­gus­tine (PNM/UNC/COP/PEP). In­de­pen­dents weren’t con­firmed yet.

There’s a four-way fight in sev­er­al places in­clud­ing Laven­tille West (PNM, UNC, COP, NOW).

Un­rep­re­sent­ed Peo­ple’s Par­ty (UPP) PoS North can­di­date Ken­neth Munroe-Browne said his par­ty’s at­tor­ney Matthew Gale will be­gin le­gal ac­tion against Gov­ern­ment next week for fail­ing to meet them to dis­cuss ex­emp­tion for their cam­paign man­ag­er, who’s in South Africa. He said the ac­tion wasn’t meant to halt the elec­tion but com­pel Gov­ern­ment to meet on the mat­ter.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment doors are wide open!

So said PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley last night as the par­ty of­fi­cial­ly launched all of its can­di­dates via a vir­tu­al plat­form pre­sen­ta­tion.

Row­ley said peo­ple were sur­prised that his Gov­ern­ment had in­vit­ed ex-Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ters Win­ston Dook­er­an and Vas­ant Bharath to join the Re­cov­ery Roadmap team. But he said the PNM was open to any­one who sub­scribed to the par­ty’s prin­ci­ples.

He joked that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Bhoe Tewarie - who as­sist­ed with the PNM’s Vi­sion 2020 plan years ago - had got­ten knocked off the UNC’s fence (as a can­di­date). He said Tewarie had been in­vit­ed to join the Re­cov­ery team but didn’t ac­cept. But he said there might be an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Row­ley said PNM was proud that it had pre­sent­ed a full slate and promised hard work for the younger ones.

He al­so said no­body could ac­cuse the PNM of mak­ing deals with con­trac­tors.

“This Prime Min­is­ter is be­hold­en to no one but the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

The UNC launch­es its team to­day, where leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar will speak.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment - 41

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress - 39

Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty - 31

New Na­tion­al Vi­sion - 7

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice - 5

Con­gress of the Peo­ple - 4

Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment - 3

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots - 2 in To­ba­go

Pro­gres­sives Par­ty - 1 San Fer­nan­do West

The Na­tion­al Par­ty - 1 San Fer­nan­do West

Na­tion­al Coali­tion for Trans­for­ma­tion - 1 (Nali­ni Di­al - Ari­ma)

Na­tion­wide Or­gan­i­sa­tion of We the Peo­ple - 1 ( Kirk Wait­he - Laven­tille West)

De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of T&T - 1 (Steve Al­varez - Moru­ga)

Un­rep­re­sent­ed Peo­ples Par­ty (UPP) - Ken­neth Munroe Browne (PoS North)

In­de­pen­dents - Naz­ma Muller (Arou­ca/Mal­oney), Er­rol Fa­bi­en (St Joseph)