At­tor­ney Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, who is on Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray’s slate for the UNC’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions, says he wants to let mem­bers de­cide whether his pres­ence on the ex­ec­u­tive will as­sist the par­ty in win­ning the next gen­er­al elec­tion

“The un­for­tu­nate facts are that we’ve lost two gen­er­al elec­tions in a row,” he said when asked about his de­ci­sion to con­test UNC elec­tions on June 15.

He is con­test­ing the post of pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy of­fi­cer.

To­mor­row is nom­i­na­tion day for the in­ter­nal elec­tions and Paray’s slate will be vy­ing for the 17 posts be­ing con­test­ed. All the can­di­dates will be re­vealed to­mor­row when they present their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to the UNC’s elec­tion man­age­ment team head­ed by at­tor­ney Dar­rell Alal­har.

The in­cum­bent pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy of­fi­cer is Sean Sobers, who is al­so an at­tor­ney, and is tipped to con­test the post again but didn’t an­swer calls for com­ment yes­ter­day.

Tak­lals­ingh is a UNC life mem­ber and said he has as­sist­ed the par­ty as a lawyer in sev­er­al ways, in­clud­ing prepar­ing speak­ing notes for MPs, con­duct­ing le­gal aid clin­ics and rep­re­sent­ing ac­tivists and sup­port­ers in le­gal mat­ters.

He said he was drawn to join forces with Paray and Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, who are con­test­ing the posts of deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, “be­cause of their ideas and vi­sion”.

Tak­lals­ingh ex­plained: “Rush­ton is a process en­gi­neer by pro­fes­sion and has ar­tic­u­lat­ed a me­thod­i­cal plan to re­form the par­ty and its arms while putting the needs and as­pi­ra­tions of the rank and file mem­ber­ship as a pri­or­i­ty.

“Ani­ta is young and ar­tic­u­late. She car­ries her­self with grace but main­tains fe­roc­i­ty in her pro­fes­sion­al de­bates.”

He added, “I think pol­i­tics is about ad­di­tion, not sub­trac­tion. We need all hands on deck. Every­one in our par­ty has a role to play. The un­for­tu­nate facts are that we have lost two gen­er­al elec­tions in a row and I’ve de­cid­ed to of­fer my­self to the mem­ber­ship for them to de­cide if my pres­ence on Na­tex would ben­e­fit the par­ty and as­sist the UNC in win­ning the next elec­tion.”

Tak­lals­ingh said he be­lieves the post of pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy of­fi­cer is a good fit for him, as it deals with the for­mu­la­tion of pol­i­cy, leg­isla­tive and oth­er­wise.

“For ex­am­ple, the UNC has ad­vo­cat­ed for stand your ground law to give own­ers a fight­ing chance to de­fend their homes and lives against crim­i­nals. As pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy of­fi­cer, I would pre­pare draft leg­is­la­tion and pol­i­cy with con­sul­ta­tion of our mem­ber­ship on is­sues such as that so when the UNC takes gov­ern­ment it has a prece­dent bank and can hit the ground run­ning to de­liv­er these changes.”

He is al­so in­ter­est­ed in the po­si­tion as a means to re-en­gage the youth in pol­i­tics.

“They’ve be­come alien­at­ed from the po­lit­i­cal process. In my dis­cus­sions with them, they don’t care about slo­gans, catch­phras­es or the­atrics on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form. They want to see and in­ter­ro­gate pre­cise­ly what politi­cians would do if they vot­ed for a par­tic­u­lar po­lit­i­cal par­ty. An ef­fec­tive pol­i­cy and strat­e­gy arm of the UNC can achieve this and I think I have the skills to make this hap­pen.”

Paray’s slate will of­fi­cial­ly be launched to­mor­row at Sig­na­ture Hall, Ch­agua­nas. Their sym­bol is the pray­ing hands (the na­maste sign).

Sources said oth­ers on the slate in­clude a for­mer re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion chair­man, a for­mer trea­sur­er and a south coun­cil­lor, plus ac­tivists from San Fer­nan­do, east Trinidad and oth­er dis­tricts.

The in­cum­bents, most of whom are UNC front­line MPs, make up the Star slate which po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar led in the par­ty’s 2020 and 2022 in­ter­nal polls. Their cam­paign launch will be next Mon­day night at the Cou­va South Hall and as UNC front­line voic­es, they are ex­pect­ed to si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly cam­paign for the June 15 in­ter­nal elec­tion and the June 17 by-elec­tions in Lengua/In­di­an Walk and Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo.