Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Af­ter get­ting the nod from the con­stituen­cy’s Women’s League, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts be­lieve Ka­reem Mar­celle has a gen­uine chance of be­ing the PNM’s choice to con­test the Laven­tille West seat in the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

On Thurs­day, the Women’s League of­fi­cial­ly rat­i­fied its de­ci­sion to se­lect Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion Al­der­man Ka­reem Mar­celle as its nom­i­nee. Mar­celle re­ceived 106 votes, and in­cum­bent MP Fitzger­ald Hinds got 78. 

The vote was done by com­mon con­sent.

It was the sec­ond time the group had to con­vene a meet­ing af­ter the first one, which saw one per­son en­dors­ing the in­cum­bent, was scrapped due to al­le­ga­tions the meet­ing was not prop­er­ly ad­ver­tised. 

How­ev­er, Hinds last Sun­day re­ceived the sup­port of the con­stituen­cy’s youth league over 30-year-old Mar­celle by a mar­gin of 18 to 14. 

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the fi­nal de­ci­sion would be made by the PNM’s screen­ing com­mit­tee, led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Yes­ter­day, an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said he be­lieves Mar­celle, de­spite be­ing a neo­phyte, may be able to bring some­thing new to Laven­tille West. 

“I think he has a re­al chance. He is a young, bright boy, he’s get­ting his feet wet. There is con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Hinds, and once the PNM’s reg­u­la­tions and laws are fol­lowed, I think Mar­celle has a good chance. There is a kind of fresh­ness about Mar­celle that might be ap­peal­ing to the screen­ing com­mit­tee,” James ex­plained. 

The po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst, how­ev­er, posit­ed that the 68-year-old Hinds can­not be con­sid­ered past his best in the con­text of pol­i­tics. He said to write him off now would be un­wise. 

James said he would have liked to hear more from Hinds dur­ing this con­tentious pe­ri­od. 

Ques­tions sent to the Laven­tille West MP over the past two weeks have gone unan­swered. Mar­celle, how­ev­er, re­spond­ed to a re­quest for a com­ment fol­low­ing the Women’s League en­dorse­ment.

Mar­celle said, “Women are the back­bone of our homes, com­mu­ni­ties, so­ci­ety, and the PNM. I am tru­ly ho­n­oured and hum­bled for the over­whelm­ing sup­port I re­ceived from our Women’s League last evening (Thurs­day). These women came from com­mu­ni­ties through­out the length and breadth of Laven­tille West and made their voic­es heard. This warms my heart. I thank and salute our women.” 

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Laven­tille West con­stituen­cy last week, res­i­dents were scep­ti­cal about Hinds re­turn­ing as their MP and gave his per­for­mance as their rep­re­sen­ta­tive a fail­ing grade. 

James said he does not think Hinds’ de­mands as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter af­fect­ed his ac­com­plish­ments as MP.

“Re­mem­ber, Dr Row­ley is the head of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. And Hinds does not do these things on his own ini­tia­tive. He may have ideas and sug­ges­tions, but he is not left to be a mav­er­ick, the Cab­i­net is in­volved in this, there is a col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the min­istries in the Cab­i­net, es­pe­cial­ly the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” he said. 

An­a­lyst Dr In­dera Sage­wan agreed.

“Mr Hinds has not been an ef­fec­tive Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. If he was at least per­form­ing well in that du­ty, then I could say ok, he has been al­lo­cat­ing all of his time and ef­fort to ad­dress­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, bring­ing the crime lev­el down, then one can for­give him, and I use this term loose­ly, his ne­glect of the con­stituen­cy. But Mr Hinds has not per­formed in the way a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter needs to per­form at this point in T&T,” she said. 

Sage­wan said she would not be sur­prised if Mar­celle is the PNM’s way for­ward for Laven­tille West.

“I think it is ben­e­fit­ing the PNM on the whole be­cause we are see­ing them go for the young pro­fes­sion­als. In the PNM, where they are em­brac­ing younger peo­ple. But not just young peo­ple with­out a track record; they are bring­ing young peo­ple who have a track record,” she ex­plained. 

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieves be­yond Laven­tille West, the en­tire vot­ing pop­u­la­tion is look­ing for fresh faces in this next gen­er­al elec­tion. 

“They are look­ing for young pro­fes­sion­als; they are look­ing for po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to choose younger peo­ple that bring vi­bran­cy to their com­mu­ni­ty and vi­bran­cy to their con­stituen­cies,” Mo­hammed said. 

Mo­hammed said Mar­celle al­so has a good pro­file to give him an ad­van­tage be­fore the screen­ing com­mit­tee.

“He is home­grown from Laven­tille West and very much a suc­cess sto­ry that can be used as a role mod­el to young peo­ple with­in his area,” he said. 

“I think Mr Hinds is dis­con­nect­ed from the ground, dis­con­nect­ed from their needs, and he does not rep­re­sent a lev­el of new­ness, ex­cite­ment, and some­thing that peo­ple can res­onate with,” Mo­hammed added.