Prime Min­is­ter and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) prospec­tive can­di­date for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, Stu­art Young, says the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ap­pears to be poor­ly pre­pared for the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. How­ev­er, he said is not both­ered by this.

Cheered on by a group of PNM sup­port­ers decked out in the par­ty’s fa­mil­iar red colours, Prime Min­is­ter Young, who is the in­cum­bent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, head­ed in­side the Bel­mont Sec­ondary School for his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to be ex­am­ined by Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) of­fi­cials.

The EBC called on all prospec­tive can­di­dates to vis­it Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers yes­ter­day for the of­fi­cial pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion of nom­i­na­tion pa­pers ahead of Nom­i­na­tion Day. The ex­er­cise was meant to en­sure there would be no hic­cups come April 4.

Ar­riv­ing just af­ter 9 am, Young was sur­round­ed by a large team of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials as he came out his ve­hi­cle and walked along Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road to greet “Young’s Army.”

The PNM sup­port­ers had walked from Young’s of­fice near­by to the school, where they wait­ed for his ar­rival.

They were not left dis­ap­point­ed, as he pumped his fists, clasped his hands and briefly chat­ted with them.

He even shout­ed “I love you too” to one of the sup­port­ers.

Af­ter his doc­u­ments were checked, Young spoke with re­porters and re­vealed that all 41 prospec­tive PNM can­di­dates were ex­pect­ed to take part in the ex­er­cise be­tween 9 am and noon yes­ter­day.

He crit­i­cised the UNC for not par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Nom­i­na­tion Day dry run, call­ing it a sign of poor prepa­ra­tion.

“I think the na­tion was look­ing on to see who our com­peti­tors were. We still don’t know who they are. But that doesn’t faze me in the least. They seem to be hav­ing some great dif­fi­cul­ties in pro­vid­ing their can­di­dates to the pop­u­la­tion. And al­so, it is note­wor­thy that the op­po­si­tion par­ty is not field­ing can­di­dates in all 41 con­stituen­cies. It seems to be like a pick-up side,” Young said.

How­ev­er, on Mon­day night, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sured that all the par­ty’s prospec­tive can­di­dates will be of­fi­cial­ly reg­is­tered in the April 4 Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cise, en­sur­ing their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did so at the UNC’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign launch at Na­pari­ma Col­lege.

“All can­di­dates will be reg­is­tered on Nom­i­na­tion Day ac­cord­ing to the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ments. Don’t be afraid; they’ll all be in­side ... we fol­low the Con­sti­tu­tion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, as­sur­ing that she met last Sun­day with a team of lawyers who have com­mit­ted to as­sist to the UNC’s cam­paign.

To those re­peat­ed­ly ask­ing where are the UNC can­di­dates, she re­spond­ed, “A hur­ried bird doesn’t build a good nest.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “We’ve tak­en our time to screen over 200 can­di­dates and re­leased can­di­dates in the mar­gin­als, and they’ve been out there work­ing. We de­lib­er­at­ed ac­cord­ing­ly; we took the time to se­lect the best can­di­dates to rep­re­sent your in­ter­ests.

“But we’ll have space for every­one to serve when we all work to­geth­er and win to­geth­er. So our op­po­nents must not dic­tate our pace. We’re in charge and we’ll do the right thing by you. We’re strate­gic, high­ly fo­cused and well-pre­pared. We’ll roll out our can­di­dates as we plan it—every day be­tween now and Nom­i­na­tion Day.”

The Op­po­si­tion UNC and its Coali­tion of In­ter­est part­ners (the OW­TU, PEP, LOVE move­ment) have can­di­dates in 39 of the 41 seats. They are not con­test­ing the two To­ba­go seats.

Mean­while, UNC al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts, who re­signed from La Brea par­ty posts and is among those speak­ing out against the cur­rent lead­er­ship, yes­ter­day wrote to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, tak­ing is­sue with yes­ter­day’s EBC ex­er­cise. Roberts said while it wasn’t manda­to­ry, it served as a crit­i­cal safe­guard against dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion due to mi­nor er­rors on Nom­i­na­tion Day, yet “thanks to her reck­less judge­ment” can­di­dates risked dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­ply to Guardian Me­dia queries on his com­ments.

MND’s Nicholas links with NTA

Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment leader Garvin Nicholas has con­firmed that he will sup­port the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance’s (NTA) Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral and Diego Mar­tin West can­di­dates, and the NTA will sup­port his bid to con­test Diego Mar­tin North/East.

Nicholas con­firmed his link with the NTA and his move to con­test Diego Mar­tin North East a day af­ter HOPE opt­ed out of con­test­ing seats, via the Peo­ple’s Al­liance coali­tion arrange­ment it had launched with the NTA and Com­mu­ni­ty Ref­or­ma­tion Net­work (CRN) last week.

“Yes, we’ll be work­ing to­geth­er, sup­port­ing each oth­er. I in­tend to sup­port their Dei­go Mar­tin West and Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral can­di­dates, and they will sup­port me,” Nicholas said yes­ter­day.

MND’s Nicholas last week is­sued a re­lease stat­ing that he had made it known to the UNC’s lead­er­ship that he want­ed to con­test Diego Mar­tin North East, but the UNC chose a “path in­con­sis­tent” with his plan.

With re­port­ing by Gail Alexan­der