In­cum­bent Op­po­si­tion MPs and sen­a­tors are among the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­bers who filed nom­i­na­tions at the par­ty’s head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day to con­test the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Among those vy­ing to be­come a UNC can­di­date in the polls which are due next year was Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts who is hop­ing to chal­lenge in­cum­bent Ter­rence Deyals­ingh for the mar­gin­al St Joseph seat. Roberts, who was the MP for D’Abadie/O’Meara in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion of 2010-2015, is al­ready pre­dict­ing a UNC vic­to­ry.

“The UNC will take St Joseph. The UNC will take five more mar­gin­als and Row­ley will be gone...There may be oth­er com­peti­tors who are go­ing in there. I’m go­ing to give my best shot to win for Team UNC,” he said.

“They’ve al­ready seen the back of Deyals­ingh, the biggest fail­ure in health, the biggest fail­ure in St Joseph. The PNM is screen­ing for a new can­di­date. Deyals­ingh is gone. Who­ev­er they bring, Team UNC, head­ed by me, I’m very con­fi­dent be­cause I know what I bring to the ta­ble and I will fight for my team.”

Al­so aim­ing to take the St Joseph seat is po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Gary Grif­fith.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said, “Gary Grif­fith go­ing up for St Joseph is ob­vi­ous­ly go­ing to be the ma­jor con­cern. It is be­cause of the fear fac­tor, be­cause as soon as it was an­nounced that Gary Grif­fith was the can­di­date for St Joseph, PNM au­to­mat­i­cal­ly pulled out their cal­cu­la­tor 22 mi­nus one equals 21, which meant one gone, one more to go. So, they had al­ready giv­en up on the fact of St Joseph but they did that on the premise that they may pos­si­bly be some type of strate­gic al­liance. If there is not, it can open the av­enue for an ex­cit­ing three-horse race.

“The can­di­date is on­ly con­firmed on nom­i­na­tion day, so if there be­comes some type of strate­gic al­liance sim­i­lar to what took place in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, it means that 41 out of the 82 can­di­dates that would have been se­lect­ed by both par­ties would step down and we will do what is right for the coun­try,” he added.

Deyals­ingh did not seem wor­ried about his like­ly po­lit­i­cal chal­lengers.

“As the MP for St Joseph, I am con­fi­dent that the peo­ple of St Joseph will not be fooled now or ever by the hodge podge mar­riages of con­ve­nience among po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates of the same ilk,” he said.

“I, as the in­cum­bent, will con­tin­ue to fo­cus my ef­forts on ex­e­cut­ing my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple of St Joseph and en­hanc­ing our con­stituen­cy for the St Joseph res­i­dents. My pri­or­i­ty is St Joseph and not on dis­trac­tions to progress.”

UNC coun­cil­lor John Michael Al­i­bo­cas, bet­ter known as Makamil­lion, and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al are both hop­ing to con­test the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy and de­throne Faris Al-Rawi.

Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said, “I’ve filed nom­i­na­tions for San Fer­nan­do West as well as Na­pari­ma. I live in San Fer­nan­do West and Na­pari­ma is al­so a seat where I think strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion is need­ed and so I’ve thrown my hat in the ring, so we’ll see what hap­pens.”

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray be­lieves his chances are as good as every­one else’s de­spite his re­cent de­mands for Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to hold in­ter­nal elec­tions.

“I’ve done very well as an MP for the last two sit­tings. I am well-liked in the con­stituen­cy. I think I’ve done a rea­son­ably good job in the Par­lia­ment for the last two sit­tings as well, so I ex­pect to be treat­ed fair­ly and ro­bust­ly like every oth­er can­di­date that is go­ing to come be­fore the screen­ing com­mit­tee and I think my chances are as good as every­body else’s,” he said

Per­sad-Bisses­sar who was sched­uled to sub­mit her nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at 1 pm, was a no-show yes­ter­day. Par­ty of­fi­cials said an agent filed the nom­i­na­tion on her be­half ear­li­er in the day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.