Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Diego Mar­tin West can­di­da­cy is de­vel­op­ing in­to a con­test be­tween me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Han des Vi­gnes and the con­stituen­cy’s la­dy vice chair­man Yokym­ma Bethelmy who has act­ed on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions as a tem­po­rary PNM sen­a­tor.

An­oth­er nom­i­nee, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, dropped out last Fri­day.

Bethelmy last Sat­ur­day re­ceived nom­i­na­tions from the Diego Mar­tin West Women’s and Youth Leagues on Sat­ur­day and is among four in the race to be the PNM’s can­di­date af­ter in­cum­bent MP, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced his re­tire­ment on Jan­u­ary 3.

The PNM has so far se­lect­ed prospec­tive can­di­dates for 33 con­stituen­cies but still has to screen nom­i­nees for Diego Mar­tin West, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin North­east, La Brea, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, Port-of-Spain South and D’Abadie/O’Meara.

The dead­line for sub­mit­ting nom­i­na­tions is Jan­u­ary 27.

Up to Fri­day af­ter­noon, six per­sons had sub­mit­ted con­sent let­ters for nom­i­na­tion for Diego Mar­tin West. At that point, des Vi­gnes was lead­ing with nom­i­na­tions from nine of the 25 par­ty groups, while there were none for Browne, Bethelmy, An­na Suleiman, Cur­tis Tou­s­saint and Lese­di Fe­lix.

Browne re­voked his con­sent let­ter for nom­i­na­tion on Fri­day night but said he re­mains in full sup­port of the par­ty and com­mit­ted to the best out­come in elec­tions.

Bethelmy sub­se­quent­ly re­ceived nom­i­na­tions from the con­stituen­cy’s Women’s League and Youth League. A Women’s League spokesper­son said Bethelmy is al­so ex­pect­ed to re­ceive nom­i­na­tions from cer­tain par­ty groups.

“I’m deeply root­ed in this vi­brant con­stituen­cy I call home. My life and ca­reer have been guid­ed by val­ues of ser­vice and ded­i­ca­tion in­stilled by my fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly in­spired by my un­cle, Ter­ry Ron­don, whose en­dur­ing com­mit­ment to com­mu­ni­ty up­lift­ment touched lives across T&T,” she said.

“I’m firm­ly com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment and com­mu­ni­ty ad­vance­ment and to con­tin­ue cham­pi­oning the voic­es of Diego Mar­tin West and the con­tin­u­ing vi­sion for a brighter fu­ture for the con­stituen­cy and the na­tion.

“I’m guid­ed by my faith and the be­lief that true lead­er­ship trans­lates vi­sion in­to re­al­i­ty while em­pow­er­ing oth­ers. I live by the mantra, Lead­er­ship is the ca­pac­i­ty to trans­late a vi­sion in­to re­al­i­ty; it is al­so un­lock­ing peo­ple’s po­ten­tial to be­come bet­ter.”

Dur­ing her stints in the Sen­ate, Bethelmy ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in key leg­isla­tive dis­cus­sions, in­clud­ing the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bills for Fi­nan­cial Years 2021 and 2022, the Im­mi­gra­tion (Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Skilled Na­tion­als) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2022, and the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) Bill, 2021.

She al­so served on the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, cham­pi­oning par­lia­men­tary in­tegri­ty and pro­tec­tive mea­sures for vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions.

As the Diego Mar­tin West of­fice man­ag­er, she had worked along­side Row­ley. She was al­so the con­stituen­cy’s so­cial me­dia team lead in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions and served as the mar­ket­ing team lead in the Arou­ca/Mal­oney Con­stituen­cy and has a track record of con­tri­bu­tions across oth­er con­stituen­cies, in­clud­ing Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West.

Bethelmy’s ex­per­tise al­so in­cludes project man­age­ment, mar­ket­ing, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion in both the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors. She honed her skills at Petrotrin where she con­tributed to union ne­go­ti­a­tions in 2015, shap­ing poli­cies that en­hanced em­ploy­ee wel­fare while re­duc­ing com­pa­ny ex­pens­es.