Gail Alexan­der

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has cho­sen busi­ness sec­tor su­per­vi­sor Judy Sookdeo as its can­di­date for next month’s Debe South by-elec­tion and the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) will an­nounce its can­di­date in the com­ing days.

The by-elec­tion is be­ing held fol­low­ing the death a year ago of Coun­cil­lor for the area Pur­shotam Singh.

The PNM an­nounced the se­lec­tion of Sookdeo yes­ter­day af­ter three nom­i­nees were screened vir­tu­al­ly for the seat. She is from Dun­can Vil­lage.

The se­lec­tion was ap­proved by PNM’s Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive.

PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing added, “The PNM has par­tic­i­pat­ed in every sin­gle elec­tion in T&T since its in­cep­tion and the Debe South bye-elec­tion is no ex­cep­tion. PNM is com­mit­ted to of­fer­ing TT’s elec­torate a suit­able op­tion to be of ser­vice to the peo­ple.”

It’s so far shap­ing up to be a PNM-UNC fight.

A UNC state­ment yes­ter­day con­firmed UNC screened its nom­i­nees un­til late Wednes­day.

UNC pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Kirk Meighoo didn’t give the num­ber of nom­i­nees screened but said the cho­sen can­di­date will be an­nounced in the com­ing days.

“The UNC re­mains com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing the burgess­es of Debe South with prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

“All nom­i­nees who of­fered them­selves ex­pressed their com­mit­ment and will­ing­ness to work with who­ev­er is cho­sen as the can­di­date.”

The UNC, which held the Debe South seat, pre­dict­ed it would win it again.

There’s no word from the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) if the par­ty will con­test the by-elec­tion af­ter PDP leader Wat­son Duke re­cent­ly said the PDP will con­test every elec­tion in Trinidad.

Nei­ther he nor PDP deputy leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine an­swered queries yes­ter­day on par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Debe by-elec­tion.

PNM, UNC killed par­ty cam­paign fi­nance bill - MSJ

Mean­while, Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah said the MSJ hadn’t con­test­ed Debe South be­fore and won’t be in the by-elec­tion.

But Ab­du­lah said a mat­ter of very se­ri­ous im­por­tance is qui­et­ly dy­ing in the Par­lia­ment as a re­sult of PNM and UNC “col­lu­sion”.

He not­ed the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Amend­ment) Bill, 2020 laid in Par­lia­ment pri­or to the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions.

“Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley pre­sent­ed this with great fan­fare, promis­ing that with this Bill, PNM would bring about reg­u­la­tions for po­lit­i­cal par­ty and cam­paign fi­nances.”

Ab­du­lah not­ed the Bill was then re­ferred to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of the Par­lia­ment - com­pris­ing Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers plus two In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. But it lapsed due to Par­lia­ment be­ing pro­rogued and Au­gust 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions. It was again in­tro­duced in the Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber 2020 and an­oth­er JSC was es­tab­lished to re­view it.

The MSJ did a 19-page sub­mis­sion on the 85-page bill but was nev­er in­vit­ed to meet the JSC.

Ab­du­lah stat­ed a fi­nal JSC re­port on the bill be­fore the first ses­sion of Par­lia­ment pro­rogued in 2021, not­ed work was in­com­plete on the bill and the JSC rec­om­mend­ed re­sump­tion of work in the cur­rent sec­ond ses­sion.

Ab­du­lah said, “That JSC didn’t meet for more than six months! Not even one vir­tu­al meet­ing, clear in­di­ca­tion that nei­ther the PNM nor UNC is in any way in­ter­est­ed in hav­ing their par­ty’s fi­nances and, es­pe­cial­ly, their cam­paign fi­nances, pub­licly scru­ti­nised and made trans­par­ent.”

“The JSC re­port­ed none of the ‘ma­jor par­ties’ (the PNM and UNC) even both­ered to make a sub­mis­sion and JSC’s re­port men­tioned no ef­fort to get these two of­fend­ing par­ties - which were well rep­re­sent­ed on the Com­mit­tee - to sub­mit their views.”

“We con­demn the PNM and UNC as they’ve in ef­fect col­lud­ed to kill the Bill,” Ab­du­lah said, not­ing claus­es of the bill would have as­sist­ed break­ing the link be­tween the con­trollers of eco­nom­ic pow­er (fi­nanciers) and the con­trollers of po­lit­i­cal pow­er.

“But four months in­to the Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment no new JSC has been es­tab­lished as the PNM and UNC con­tin­ue to frus­trate the process. This isn’t sur­pris­ing giv­en the PNM’s huge spend­ing in the De­cem­ber 6th To­ba­go elec­tions and the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions due this year. We de­mand that these two par­ties im­me­di­ate­ly set up a new Par­lia­men­tary JSC, com­plete with pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion and have the Bill de­bat­ed and passed be­fore the end of June 2022.’’