Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Af­ter Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce opt­ed out of seek­ing an­oth­er term in the seat and the La Brea nom­i­nees were re­ject­ed, the PNM is now seek­ing nom­i­nees for both con­stituen­cies by De­cem­ber 20 and has al­so asked for To­ba­go East and West nom­i­nees by then.

Leonce, who didn’t at­tend Mon­day’s screen­ing, said some se­ri­ous per­son­al is­sues af­fect­ing his fam­i­ly have arisen and will pre­vent him from con­test­ing the seat.

“I hope in the fu­ture, these is­sues are re­solved that I can re­turn to serve the peo­ple,” he said yes­ter­day.

This de­vel­op­ment means there will be changes in both Laven­tille seats. Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds with­drew his can­di­da­cy last week. On Mon­day the par­ty chose at­tor­ney and Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man Ka­reem Mar­celle to re­place Hinds.

Screen­ing of prospec­tive can­di­dates, in­clud­ing in­cum­bents, for 15 PNM-held con­stituen­cies took place at Bal­isi­er House from 5 pm and end­ed around 11.53 pm with Mar­celle and 12 in­cum­bents be­ing se­lect­ed.

The PNM said in a state­ment that the can­di­dates se­lect­ed in­clud­ed in­cum­bent MPs Roger Mon­roe (To­co/San­gre Grande), Kennedy Richards (Point Fortin), Bri­an Man­ning (San Fer­nan­do East), Faris Al-Rawi (San Fer­nan­do West), Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (Arou­ca Mal­oney), Fos­ter Cum­mings (La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro), Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly (St Ann’s East), Pen­ne­lope Beck­les (Ari­ma), Lisa Mor­ris-Julien (D’Abadie O’Meara), Mar­vin Gon­za­les (La Hor­quet­ta/Bon Air West), Ter­rence Deyals­ingh (St Joseph) and Es­mond Forde (Tu­na­puna).

La Brea was sent back to seek new nom­i­nees af­ter MP Stephen McLashie and Brighton Ves­signy coun­cil­lor Jil­lon Lewis were screened.

Christo­pher Enci­nas, an al­der­man in the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion who had ma­jor­i­ty sup­port from the ex­ec­u­tive, had an emer­gency and didn’t at­tend the screen­ing on Mon­day. La Brea con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials said Enci­nas is still be­ing con­sid­ered.

Leonce is opt­ing out of an­oth­er term as MP for Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, the con­stituen­cy he has rep­re­sent­ed since 2015. He was a back­bencher in his first term as MP and was re-elect­ed in 2020. He is cur­rent­ly the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing.

In the cur­rent nom­i­na­tion process, Leonce, an en­gi­neer, was un­op­posed for the seat and was sup­port­ed by par­ty groups and ex­ec­u­tives. How­ev­er, when Laven­tille East/Mor­vant was called as the sec­ond con­stituen­cy to face the screen­ing pan­el, it was con­firmed he wasn’t present. Ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials were re­port­ed­ly “con­fused and an­noyed” by those de­vel­op­ments, par­ty in­sid­ers said.

When he was con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Leonce said in a state­ment: “I love my peo­ple. The con­stituen­cy of Laven­tille East/Mor­vant is the place I was born and grew. I be­lieve that God placed in my heart a pur­pose and pas­sion to serve.

“It was brought to my at­ten­tion yes­ter­day some very se­ri­ous per­son­al is­sues that af­fect my fam­i­ly and my­self. It breaks my heart to not be able to of­fer my full ser­vice to my peo­ple as I have been com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment and growth of peo­ple.”

He added: “I’ll com­mit to my ser­vice un­til the end of the term but have to ad­dress my per­son­al is­sues. I hope that in the fu­ture, as these is­sues are re­solved, I can re­turn to serve the peo­ple. I love my peo­ple and will con­tin­ue in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty I can, to serve. Ser­vice is the great­est ex­pres­sion of love.”

Leonce said he would sup­port who­ev­er is cho­sen as the can­di­date. He al­so said the re­cent mat­ter of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s (SRC) pay in­creas­es didn’t in­flu­ence his de­ci­sion to stand down.

Last month, Leonce said he be­lieved the Gov­ern­ment would not adopt the SRC re­port propos­ing wage hikes for state of­fi­cials. On Thurs­day Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in­di­cat­ed Gov­ern­ment had ac­cept­ed the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions.

Row­ley didn’t re­spond to ques­tions about Leonce’s with­draw­al that were sent to him yes­ter­day. For­mer MP Don­na Cox didn’t re­spond to ques­tions about where she would seek the Laven­tille East/Mor­vant nom­i­na­tion.

Obi­ka seeks La Brea can­di­da­cy

Econ­o­mist Tahar­qa Obi­ka, who left the UNC in 2023 to join the PNM and served as a tem­po­rary sen­a­tor last week, yes­ter­day con­firmed an in­ter­est in La Brea.

“I’ll be of­fer­ing my­self to be a ser­vant to the peo­ple of La Brea,” Obi­ka said.

Obi­ka has been work­ing for the PNM in south Trinidad since he joined the par­ty. Re­cent­ly, he’s been work­ing in the south­west de­vel­op­ing a plan for that area.

For­mer Min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte, who un­suc­cess­ful­ly sought the La Brea can­di­da­cy in 2020, al­so con­firmed that par­ty groups had reached out to him but said he had no oth­er com­ment “at this time.”

To­ba­go PNM of­fi­cials said they don’t fore­see any chal­lengers to the two To­ba­go MPs (Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis and Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy).

Mon­day’s screen­ing brings the num­ber of prospec­tive PNM can­di­dates to 32 out of a to­tal of 41 and 19 are al­ready work­ing in UNC-held ar­eas.

Af­ter screen­ings for the To­ba­go seats, La Brea and Laven­tille East/Mor­vant are com­plet­ed, the par­ty will on­ly need to screen nom­i­nees for the three Diego Mar­tin seats - cur­rent­ly held by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Min­is­ters Colm Im­bert and Symon de No­bri­ga - and Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West and Port-of-Spain South, where the in­cum­bent MPs are Stu­art Young and Kei­th Scot­land.