Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieves the se­lec­tion of Hans Des Vi­gnes to re­place Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as the Diego Mar­tin West rep­re­sen­ta­tive is a fore­gone con­clu­sion.

Me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Hans Des Vi­gnes is backed by 16 par­ty groups in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), along with the ex­ec­u­tive.

Oth­er nom­i­nees are la­dy vice chair­man Yokym­ma Bethelmy, con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial Cur­tis Tou­s­saint, and con­stituen­cy of­fi­cial Lese­di Fe­lix.

Dr Mo­hammed be­lieves its just a mat­ter of pro­ce­dure now.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is in a space where you could tell by his mind­set and by the more re­laxed [man­ner] of his dress that in his mind, he is lit­er­al­ly on pre-re­tire­ment leave. He is ty­ing up loose ends,” the po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst ob­served.

“I think that it is a fore­gone con­clu­sion. I would be very sur­prised if they come back with some­body else,” he said, re­fer­ring to Des Vi­gnes be­ing se­lect­ed to suc­ceed Dr Row­ley in the Diego Mar­tin West seat.

And with re­gard to lat­est de­vel­op­ments in the Op­po­si­tion par­ty, Dr Mo­hammed be­lieves that the out­go­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Cu­mo­to/Man­zanil­la, Dr Rai Rag­bir, should count him­self lucky to have served un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Last week, Dr Rag­bir con­firmed that he will not be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the UNC's screen­ing process.

In a state­ment, he said he re­fused to sub­mit him­self “to a screen­ing com­mit­tee that in­cludes in­di­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly charged with wrong­do­ing.”

But Dr Mo­hammed be­lieves Dr Rag­bir should be mind­ful that the UNC took a chance on him when they did not have to.

“He should con­sid­er him­self lucky,” Dr Mo­hammed as­sert­ed, “be­cause there were many oth­er peo­ple who were more qual­i­fied, and whom I be­lieve were more suit­able to be se­lect­ed as Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in that 2020 slate, and they were not giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

“So, count your lucky stars you [Dr Rag­bir] were giv­en that op­por­tu­ni­ty for five years, and that you even serve as a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty,” the po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst added.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment will have screen­ings for three seats to­day—Diego Mar­tin West, Diego Marin North-East, and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la.