With the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress still to re­veal 15 re­main­ing can­di­dates, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed is sug­gest­ing the par­ty's strat­e­gy of spo­rad­i­cal­ly an­nounc­ing its can­di­dates for the April 28 poll was pos­si­bly due to po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­ing wary of in­cum­bent MPs dis­sent­ing be­fore the elec­tion.   

Mo­hammed ques­tioned the use of the tac­tic with the Gen­er­al Elec­tion 26 days away.

"Nom­i­na­tion day is on Fri­day, it makes no sense to be hold­ing or dan­gling this car­rot on a stick over the heads of these per­sons," Mo­hammed said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day.

"At this stage, bite the bul­let and sim­ply just make the an­nounce­ment. There is no back­lash," he added. 

De­scrib­ing the elec­tion as un­prece­dent­ed in terms of new and small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties join­ing the fray tra­di­tion­al­ly dom­i­nat­ed by the UNC and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, Mo­hammed said that cit­i­zens had choic­es if they were dis­en­chant­ed with the two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties and still want­ed to ex­er­cise their fran­chise. 

"It is an open field for any of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties whose can­di­dates they be­lieve are best suit­ed to them," he said. 

Not­ing that the in­cum­bent PNM an­nounced its can­di­dates well be­fore the elec­tion date was set by Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, last month, Mo­hammed not­ed that it (the PNM) did not se­lect can­di­dates based on the vary­ing de­mo­graph­ics in con­stituen­cies but rather on their abil­i­ty to per­form. 

"Look at the PNM slate. If the can­di­date can do the work, they are se­lect­ed. In 2025, peo­ple want some­one who is com­mit­ted to the cause, sen­si­tive to their needs and would an­swer the call to ef­fec­tive­ly gov­ern this coun­try," Mo­hammed said. 

Mean­while, in­cum­bent Tabaquite Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, who screened to again con­test the con­stituen­cy, said that she was wait­ing on an of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment from Per­sad-Bisses­sar. 

"I have been look­ing on at­ten­tive­ly at the de­vel­op­ments since the elec­tion date was called, and I am pre­pared for any out­come," Haynes-Al­leyne said on Tues­day. 

Haynes-Al­leyne was among five MPs who raised con­cerns about the lead­er­ship of the UNC and ques­tioned when the par­ty's na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions would have been held last year. The elec­tion even­tu­al­ly took place in June 2024.

The oth­ers who al­so voiced their con­cerns were in­cum­bent MPs for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la Dr Rai Rag­bir, Ch­agua­nas West Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Ma­yaro Rush­ton Paray and Na­pari­ma Rod­ney Charles. 

Both Rag­bir and Ram­bal­ly put them­selves for­ward for re-elec­tion but with­drew be­fore they were screened by the par­ty. Charles sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to re­tire from ac­tive pol­i­tics well be­fore the elec­tion was an­nounced. 

Paray was screened by the par­ty but the UNC's in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions of­fi­cer Nicholas Mor­ris was re­vealed as the prospec­tive can­di­date dur­ing a cam­paign meet­ing in the To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy on Sat­ur­day. 

For­mer po­lice of­fi­cer Roger Alexan­der was an­nounced as the prospec­tive can­di­date for Tu­na­puna at the meet­ing. 

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dis­missed any po­ten­tial fall­out from the dis­sent­ing MPs.