KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Hun­dreds of sup­port­ers left elat­ed af­ter the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s lat­est round of screen­ing for gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates on Mon­day.

From Laven­tille to To­co, peo­ple came by bus­loads to show their sup­port for their prospec­tive can­di­dates.

And af­ter more than five hours of screen­ing, the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple were over­joyed as most of their in­cum­bent MPs were re-se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent them when­ev­er the elec­tion is called.

With the back­ing of scores of peo­ple clad in Fos­ter t-shirts and ban­ners, La Hor­quet­ta-Tal­paro MP Fos­ter Cum­mings said he was hap­py with the process.

Cum­mings said, “The PNM’s process is very strong and well or­gan­ised. We had the screen­ing. The con­stituen­cy of La Hor­quet­ta-Tal­paro gave their sup­port for the re­turn of their Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. The screen­ing com­mit­tee agreed with that po­si­tion and here I am once again of­fer­ing my­self to be the next Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment... “There were quite a lot of ques­tions. Of course, they want­ed to hear some of the things about what’s been hap­pen­ing in the con­stituen­cy and how we in­tend to move for­ward and at the end of it here I am as your next Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment.”

Asked if he’ll al­so be con­test­ing the role of leader of the par­ty, he replied, “We are far away from that. It’s 2026 for that race.”

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning, an­oth­er name be­ing bandied about for the lead­er­ship po­si­tion, shied away from the top­ic but said he too was elat­ed to be the MP nom­i­nee once again. Man­ning al­so dis­pelled claims of bad blood with­in the par­ty, es­pe­cial­ly among those al­leged­ly eye­ing the po­lit­i­cal leader po­si­tion.

“My fo­cus is com­plete­ly on rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do East and that’s where it will re­main at this point in time... I wouldn’t say there’s bad blood. I mean, it’s a very com­pet­i­tive space. Lots of peo­ple who be­lieve that they have dif­fer­ent ideas about how things should op­er­ate, so I think it’s very healthy for the par­ty for dif­fer­ent per­sons to trash out what­ev­er views that they may have in terms of strat­e­gy and how we man­age our af­fairs,” Man­ning said.

Asked about fol­low­ing in his fa­ther Patrick Man­ning’s foot­steps, he said, “My fa­ther was MP for San Fer­nan­do for 44 years. I’ve been the MP for four years so I will tell those peo­ple please be pa­tient. I do be­lieve that it’s a steep learn­ing curve in this busi­ness, es­pe­cial­ly if you’re an MP, min­is­ter and al­so work­ing with­in the par­ty. It’s a lot of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and it does take some get­ting used to... I feel elat­ed and I re­al­ly feel grate­ful and ap­pre­cia­tive that the screen­ing com­mit­tee, the par­ty, the ex­ec­u­tive and the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do East sup­port me in re­turn­ing as their can­di­date in the next gen­er­al elec­tion. It wasn’t a very long process but it can be in­tense and of course when you’re in the hot seat it feels a lot longer than it re­al­ly is. They asked me sev­er­al eva­sive ques­tions. But, I felt pre­pared. I felt re­laxed. At the end of it they de­cid­ed that I should be the can­di­date go­ing for­ward and that’s a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that I take very se­ri­ous­ly.”

In­cum­bent San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi said he was con­fi­dent he would re­gain the seat when con­stituents go to the polls.

Al-Rawi said, “Screen­ing is al­ways a solemn ex­er­cise and a priv­i­lege in the PNM. I thank the screen­ing com­mit­tee for giv­ing me a love­ly screen­ing. It was di­rect. There are no punch­es pulled in­side of a screen­ing process. It was good and we’re about win­ning an elec­tion,” he said.

“I wish to thank my ex­ec­u­tive. It was a unan­i­mous po­si­tion put for­ward and look­ing for­ward to rub­ber hit­ting the road and win­ning this elec­tion. San Fer­nan­do is the PNM and we will be keep­ing our dom­i­nance in that seat for sure.”

On De­cem­ber 1, UNC an­nounced ed­u­ca­tion­al con­sul­tant Dr Michael Dowlath as its San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date.

The for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege prin­ci­pal served as an ed­u­ca­tor at sec­ondary School lev­el for 34 years, in­clud­ing 20 years as a prin­ci­pal.

How­ev­er, Al-Rawi is un­fazed by the com­pe­ti­tion.

Asked about Dr Dowlath, he said, “Wel­come all com­peti­tors. It’s the third time I’m con­test­ing this seat. They have all met the sim­i­lar fate. Dr Dowlath, I’m told, is a very de­cent man. I look for­ward to meet­ing him on the cam­paign trail. I give him con­do­lences on the loss he will suf­fer al­ready but that par for the course.”

Yes­ter­day, the PNM opened nom­i­na­tions in two more con­stituen­cies, To­ba­go West and To­ba­go East and re-opened nom­i­na­tions for Laven­tille East-Mor­vant and La Brea.

Laven­tille East-Mor­vant in­cum­bent MP Adri­an Leonce, like Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds, pulled out of the screen­ing process at the last minute, while nei­ther of the three prospects for La Brea, in­clud­ing in­cum­bent Stephen Mc Clashie, were cho­sen by the screen­ing com­mit­tee on Mon­day. Nom­i­na­tions for those four con­stituen­cies will close on De­cem­ber 20 at noon.