Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is ex­pect­ed to start screen­ing nom­i­nees from nine con­stituen­cies in late Au­gust to ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. Ahead of the screen­ing, the PNM will be hold­ing a spe­cial con­ven­tion this Sun­day on its in­ter­nal re­port on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

Ex­ec­u­tive units from the nine con­stituen­cies are fi­nal­is­ing to present their nom­i­nees to the par­ty by to­mor­row’s 4 pm dead­line. The PNM lead­er­ship had man­dat­ed the nine units in June and Ju­ly to start search­ing for gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees in the nine UNC-held con­stituen­cies.

Screen­ing is ex­pect­ed to be done soon af­ter to­mor­row’s dead­line, PNM of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day. Nom­i­nees to be screened are from five south­ern con­stituen­cies, two in the Cen­tral and two in the North.

The screen­ing will be done at PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head of­fice and the par­ty’s Cen­tral and South of­fices al­so.

PNM leader Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will head the par­ty’s screen­ing team, which in­cludes oth­er PNM ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

There are four ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est in Barataria/San Juan. The ex­ec­u­tive there is ex­pect­ed to sup­port a well-known in­di­vid­ual who is in pub­lic life, sources hint­ed.

The Pointe-a-Pierre unit has re­ceived ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from two ath­letes and two busi­ness­men. The Moru­ga-Table­land unit, which met on the is­sue, will present its se­lec­tions af­ter peo­ple ex­pressed their in­ter­est to par­ty groups seek­ing their sup­port to be nom­i­nat­ed.

They in­clude for­mer MP Dr Lovell Fran­cis (like­ly be­ing screened vir­tu­al­ly, sources said), PNM Lengua-In­di­an Walk cam­paign man­ag­er Lisa At­wa­ter, busi­ness man­age­ment ex­pert Kernisha Prince-King, and oth­ers.

Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la’s nom­i­nees are a fe­male busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ist, a fe­male fi­nance ex­pert, and a busi­ness­man.

Ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est in Ma­yaro in­clude ac­coun­tant/au­di­tor Janes­sa Camp­bell, at­tor­ney Asha Hard­eo-Dhan­pat, and Ma­yaro busi­ness­man and 2020 for­mer nom­i­nee Bun­ny Ma­habirs­ingh.

There are two ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from pro­fes­sion­als in man­age­ment and law to con­test the St Au­gus­tine seat for the PNM in the gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ch­agua­nas East of­fi­cials said the process was not com­plet­ed, they didn’t know who would be se­lect­ed yet, and the on­ly name they were “hear­ing” was Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Works Richie Sookhai. He nev­er re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia’s query on any nom­i­na­tion.

Ca­roni East of­fi­cials said the area had four nom­i­nees but could not say what their pro­fes­sions are. There was no word from Fyz­abad on whether it ini­tial­ly claimed four ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est con­cre­tised in­to any nom­i­nees.

Con­sti­tu­tion con­ven­tion

on Sun­day

Mean­while, ahead of the screen­ing, the PNM yes­ter­day an­nounced it will hold a spe­cial par­ty con­ven­tion on Sun­day to dis­cuss the re­port of the PNM’s in­ter­nal team, which was set up in Jan­u­ary to de­vel­op a par­ty po­si­tion on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

That team was head­ed by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land. The spe­cial con­ven­tion will be held at the North­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts from 1 pm.

Row­ley is ex­pect­ed to speak by 5 pm. The PNM’s spe­cial con­ven­tion on the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form is­sue fol­lows the Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee’s (NAC) pre­sen­ta­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter of its re­port on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

The team, head­ed by for­mer house speak­er Baren­dra Sinanan, pro­vid­ed a sum­ma­ry of key is­sues raised dur­ing re­cent con­sti­tu­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions. The NAC’s re­port will be pre­sent­ed to the Cab­i­net, which will ini­ti­ate a pub­lic na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion on its pro­pos­als lat­er this year.

Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga said yes­ter­day that the Cab­i­net has ex­tend­ed the life of the com­mit­tee to De­cem­ber 31.