Un­em­ploy­ment among young peo­ple has been high­light­ed as the ma­jor is­sue af­fect­ing the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro con­stituen­cy. 

That was how yes­ter­day’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cis­es for Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­dates went down in a num­ber of con­stituen­cies.

Can­di­dates for po­lit­i­cal par­ties hop­ing to con­test the 41 seats in the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, filed nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at the of­fices of Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers yes­ter­day. Guardian Me­dia’s pho­tog­ra­phers cap­tured the fan­fare that ac­com­pa­nied the nom­i­na­tions acrossed the coun­try.

Scat­tered show­ers across south Trinidad did not damp­en the usu­al flare which Nom­i­na­tion Day has grown ac­cus­tomed to and even de­spite calls to ad­here to lim­it­ing gath­er­ings to no more twen­ty-five, scores of par­ty sup­port­ers ral­lied be­hind their re­spec­tive can­di­dates who inched clos­er to en­ter­ing the elec­tion gayelle.

Through­out the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, all eyes have been on Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh as the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) led ad­min­is­tra­tion was tasked to pro­tect the coun­try from the virus which has al­ready killed over 500,000 peo­ple world­wide and in­fect­ed mil­lions more. How­ev­er, Deyals­ingh is not claim­ing any ad­van­tage from this pub­lic­i­ty for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion as he seeks to hold on to his St Joseph seat he held since 2013.

“I will fight be­cause I be­lieve that I live here and I have a right and I owe it to my con­stituen­cy and my­self to have a bet­ter life.”

Close to 100 sup­port­ers came out yes­ter­day to sup­port the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Can­di­date for Barataria/San Juan Ja­son Williams.

Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters re­fused to com­ment on al­le­ga­tions of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence against him as he filed nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer’s of­fice at Princes Town yes­ter­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has dis­closed the re­al rea­son he fired for­mer Sport Min­is­ter Dar­ryl Smith, say­ing it had noth­ing to do with sex­u­al ha­rass­ment but be­cause Smith in­ter­fered with the prop­er process of the Pub­lic Ser­vice, re­sult­ing in a fi­nan­cial cost to tax­pay­ers.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is pre­dict­ing her par­ty will win the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, has called for those from oth­er po­lit­i­cal sides who are fed up with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to unite to fight them in a Na­tion­al Ac­cord Ini­tia­tive.

The fam­i­ly mem­bers of Per­cy Thomas are adamant that their nephew Roger Mon­roe the PNM’s can­di­date for To­co/San­gre Grande has been telling half-truths to the me­dia.

The Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy has tra­di­tion­al­ly been a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) strong­hold. Out­go­ing MP Mar­lene Mc­don­ald has rep­re­sent­ed the area since 2007.