Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Deputy Port-of-Spain May­or Hillan More­an will as­sist the PNM’s prospec­tive can­di­date for St Anns Riv­er North, for­mer De­fence Force mem­ber Ali­cia Gift, in her cam­paign. She is part of the mix of new faces and in­cum­bents se­lect­ed as PNM prospec­tive can­di­dates in Port-of-Spain, San Juan/Laven­tille and Diego Mar­tin for the Au­gust 14 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion.

Screen­ing of nom­i­nees in the PNM-con­trolled Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion took place Mon­day. Gift was cho­sen to re­place More­an who will not be seek­ing re­elec­tion af­ter serv­ing as coun­cil­lor for that area for ten years.

Com­ment­ing briefly on his suc­ces­sor, More­an said: ”Of course I’m lend­ing sup­port and as­sist­ing. She’s very pas­sion­ate and has shown an in­ter­est in process­es over the years while I was a coun­cil­lor.”

PNM of­fi­cials said eight of the in­cum­bents for the 12 Port-of-Spain elec­toral ar­eas were re­turned and while some­one was screened for St James West, no one has been con­firmed as yet.

Apart from Gift, the new Port-of-Spain can­di­dates are Raphael Bournes for Bel­mont South, re­plac­ing Aba Ka­mau and Mark Ayen for Wood­brook, who re­places June Durham.

The re­turn­ing in­cum­bents are Jameel Bis­nath (St James East), Den­nis Bris­tol (South­ern Port-of-Spain), Abena Hart­ley (North­ern Port-of-Spain), Jen­nell Fred­er­ick (St Anns Riv­er South), Es­ther Sylvester (St Anns Riv­er Cen­tral), Clint Bap­tiste (East Dry Riv­er,) Mal­ouia Bourne (Bel­mont North/West) and Nicole Young (Bel­mont East).

In the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, where screen­ings al­so took place on Mon­day, al­most half of the PNM’s in­cum­bents were re­turned. Fur­ther nom­i­nees are be­ing sought for a seat in El So­cor­ro/Aranguez. The PNM holds 12 of the 14 seats in that mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion.

For the PNM-con­trolled Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion’s ten seats, the can­di­dates in­clude five in­cum­bents. They are Avanelle Boyce (Covi­gne/Rich Plain), Am­ber Caines (Glen­coe/Good­wood/La Puer­ta), Ali­na Renn (Bagatelle/Blue Basin), Kee­da James (Di­a­mond Vale) and Mar­cia Maslin (Pe­tit Val­ley/Co­corite).

The new can­di­dates are Kevon Williams (Ch­aguara­mas /Pt Cumana), Samuel Carter (Belle Vue/Boissiere #1), Damain Four­nel­li­er (Mo­ka/Boissierre #2), Chelsea Mendez (St Lu­cien /Cameron) and Lisa Richards-Cole (Morne Co­co/Alyce Glen).

Screen­ings have been paused un­til next Mon­day as po­lit­i­cal leader Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is in the Ba­hamas for a Cari­com meet­ing. The par­ty’s PRO Faris Al Rawi and chair­man Stu­art Young did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment about the screen­ing process.

UNC com­pletes screen­ings next week

UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo said screen­ings con­tin­ued yes­ter­day for the Princes Town and Rio Claro/Ma­yaro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions.

“We ex­pect to com­plete screen­ings by the end of next week. We feel en­cour­aged by the large num­ber of ap­pli­cants and es­pe­cial­ly by the high num­ber of pro­fes­sion­als, women and young per­sons seek­ing to serve in lo­cal gov­ern­ment,” he said.

“I ex­pect we’ll be­gin an­nounc­ing can­di­dates soon to al­low can­di­dates to join the teams al­ready on the ground and I’m con­fi­dent we’ll take the San Fer­nan­do Cor­po­ra­tion and give the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do and en­vi­rons the kind of lo­cal gov­ern­ment ser­vice they need.”

Screen­ings con­tin­ue to­mor­row for Point Fortin, in San­gre Grande and San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day and in Ari­ma and Tu­na­puna on Tuees­day.

Most of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty’s (PEP) screen­ings should be com­plet­ed by Sat­ur­day, said po­lit­i­cal leader Phillip Alexan­der.

“We’re con­test­ing alone as a na­tion­al par­ty. We’re work­ing at max­i­mum-readi­ness pace, cor­po­ra­tion by cor­po­ra­tion. Most of the prepa­ra­tion was done months be­fore so what we do and where will be based on what the par­ty be­lieves is the best strat­e­gy,” he said.

“The elec­tion date was an in­sid­i­ous choice meant to cause max­i­mum dis­ar­ray and hard­ship to oth­er par­ties. Gov­ern­ment must nev­er again have the ad­van­tage of know­ing the date months be­fore every­body else. This is why a fixed elec­tion date is so im­por­tant,” Alexan­der added.

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah said the par­ty is con­test­ing so­lo and is fi­nal­is­ing nom­i­nees to con­test one south Trinidad re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion.

“An­oth­er may come in­to play,” he said

The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) is ac­tive­ly en­gaged in screen­ing, po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith said in a text re­sponse to ques­tions about the par­ty’s prepa­ra­tion.

“We con­tin­ue to be heart­ened by the re­spons­es we’re re­ceiv­ing. We’ll in­tro­duce can­di­dates on com­ple­tion of the process,” he said.

Grif­fith didn’t say how many can­di­dates the NTA will be field­ing , which ar­eas the par­ty will con­test, or com­ment on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­test­ing with an­oth­er par­ty.

Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (MND) leader Garvin Nicholas said: ”We’re con­test­ing (in Diego Mar­tin) and ac­tive­ly search­ing for can­di­dates.”

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond. Re­cent­ly the par­ty’s chair­man, Sean Nedd, said when the date is de­ter­mined PDP will “strate­gi­cal­ly” re­lease in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing its nom­i­nees and oth­er plans.