Gail Alexan­der

While Point Fortin May­or Ab­don Ma­son didn’t “get through” last Sun­day’s PNM screen­ing for his Teshea/Guapo seat, he says he trusts his par­ty’s mech­a­nisms and will con­tin­ue sup­port­ing who­ev­er is cho­sen.

“I did my cry­ing Sun­day night, but woke up (yes­ter­day) and re­alised God had giv­en me life. So I on­ly have a cou­ple of months to serve as may­or and I’ll get on with the good job I know I’ve been do­ing,” Ma­son told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

On Sun­day, PNM’s Point Fortin ex­ec­u­tive was man­dat­ed to re­turn and seek fresh Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion nom­i­nees for the Teshea/Guapo seat, pos­si­bly by the end of the week. PNM Point Fortin ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Franklin Bertram con­firmed in a brief in­ter­view that screen­ing wasn’t com­plet­ed for all ar­eas.

Point Fortin can­di­dates were among the first to be screened in last week­end’s kick­off of the PNM’s screen­ing of lo­cal gov­ern­ment nom­i­nees.

In the first round last Sat­ur­day, the par­ty’s screen­ing com­mit­tee in­ter­viewed 17 nom­i­nees for eight San­gre Grande elec­toral dis­tricts. Can­di­dates for four ar­eas were cho­sen. The ex­ec­u­tive has to re­turn with can­di­dates for the oth­er four. Nine of the can­di­dates cho­sen are un­der age 35.

Screen­ing was done on Sun­day for cor­po­ra­tion ar­eas in San Fer­nan­do, Siparia and Point Fortin and 13 can­di­dates were in­ter­viewed for the six Point Fortin seats, with eight peo­ple un­der age 25 among the can­di­dates cho­sen.

Ma­son, who is al­so the par­ty’s field of­fi­cer, was screened with four oth­ers for the Teshea/Guapo seat he held in the last term. He ad­mit­ted that he was dis­ap­point­ed not to be cho­sen.

“Peo­ple have called me and said they’re ready to de­fend the sit­u­a­tion but I’ve been in the PNM for 33 years and I trust the mech­a­nisms. I sup­port my par­ty and ex­ec­u­tive in the job they’re do­ing to res­cue Trinidad and To­ba­go and even if I wasn’t picked I will de­fend the par­ty and who­ev­er’s se­lect­ed to the end. My ra­tio­nale is, if not PNM for the gov­ern­ment then who?”

Ma­son said he had an ex­cel­lent coun­cil record and his com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice as may­or al­so “spoke vol­umes...but I re­spect the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive’s po­si­tion. I know I’m leav­ing big shoes to fill as it won’t be easy for any­one to be coun­cil­lor and may­or,” he said.

The par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive chair­man in Point Fortin, Bertram, said he was at a fu­ner­al when Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed him and didn’t an­swer lat­er calls on why the ex­ec­u­tive didn’t sup­port Ma­son. Par­ty sources hint­ed that the ex­ec­u­tive had cer­tain con­cerns.

In San Fer­nan­do, 15 peo­ple were screened for the nine elec­toral seats and nine were se­lect­ed, com­plet­ing the screen­ing ex­er­cise there. Two of the can­di­dates are un­der age 35, the par­ty con­firmed.

Sev­er­al of the in­cum­bents were un­op­posed, in­clud­ing coun­cil­lors Nigum Joseph (Spring­vale/Par­adise), Phillip Mon­tano (Mara­bel­la/South Vista Bel­la) and Ri­ad Ho­sein (Les Ef­forts East/Cipero). How­ev­er in­cum­bent for Mon Re­pos/Navet Pa­tri­cia Wil­son is be­ing re­placed with Nigel Cot­ti­er, of­fi­cials said,

In Siparia, the 23 nom­i­nees in­clud­ed sev­er­al in­cum­bents at the screen­ing for the nine elec­toral ar­eas. Can­di­dates were cho­sen for eight of the ar­eas and fresh nom­i­nees are be­ing sought for the ninth seat.

Yes­ter­day, the PNM was sched­uled to screen more 20 nom­i­nees for the 16 Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion seats, as well as for D'Abadie/O'Meara, St Au­gus­tine, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro and oth­er ar­eas along the East West Cor­ri­dor. T

he screen­ing team, head­ed by po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, was due to start in­ter­view­ing nom­i­nees from 5 pm at Bal­isi­er House head of­fice. Screen­ings con­tin­ue to­mor­row with nom­i­nees for San Juan/Laven­tille and on Thurs­day nom­i­nees for the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion will be screened.

Cor­po­ra­tion sources said while most in­cum­bents are of­fer­ing them­selves, one or two from St James and St Ann’s may not be con­sid­ered since they are in per­ma­nent jobs. Pro­posed lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form re­quires full-time coun­cil­lors.

The par­ty aims to have its full slate of can­di­dates in place by next month. The lo­cal gov­ern­ment term ends No­vem­ber and polls are due be­tween then and end of Jan­u­ary 2020.

A Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee re­port on the pro­posed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form Bill is due by Sep­tem­ber 27. That JSC meets this af­ter­noon. The EBC’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment draft or­der is al­so yet to be de­bat­ed.