KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has for­mal­ly sig­nalled his in­ter­est to be screened for the post of Diego Mar­tin West MP. He broke his si­lence yes­ter­day, say­ing he was ready to serve faith­ful­ly. 

It has been al­most two weeks since Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced he would not be con­test­ing Diego Mar­tin West, the con­stituen­cy he has held for 33 years, as he mo­tioned his ex­it from lo­cal pol­i­tics. 

Since Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment, Diego Mar­tin con­stituents have ex­pressed their sup­port for Browne to be his re­place­ment, even be­fore Browne re­vealed his in­ter­est. 

With two weeks to go be­fore the dead­line for sub­mis­sions of nom­i­na­tions can be made by par­ty groups, Browne ac­knowl­edged that step­ping in­to the role of Diego Mar­tin West MP was a big shoe to fill.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, he said, “I am acute­ly aware that at the con­stituen­cy lev­el, there are big shoes to fill, as Diego Mar­tin West has been rep­re­sent­ed by a re­silient and ac­com­plished po­lit­i­cal gi­ant for many years. The process be­gins with an in­di­ca­tion of a will­ing­ness to faith­ful­ly serve, and I have so in­di­cat­ed.” 

Browne fur­ther clar­i­fied, “The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment has ini­ti­at­ed the process for nom­i­na­tions for the re­main­ing seats. No dates for the rel­e­vant screen­ings have been an­nounced as yet, but as you would ap­pre­ci­ate, this is a step-by-step process with which the par­ty is well ac­cus­tomed in its tra­di­tion of democ­ra­cy.” 

No of­fi­cial nom­i­na­tion has been filed for any­one to be screened for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fill Row­ley’s decades-long role. 

The PNM’s screen­ing com­mit­tee is yet to re­ceive any nom­i­na­tions from par­ty groups for the con­stituen­cy.

Un­der the PNM’s con­sti­tu­tion, it is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of par­ty groups, the women’s arm, and the youth league in each con­stituen­cy to nom­i­nate a can­di­date for screen­ing ahead of any elec­tion. 

Po­ten­tial MPs can on­ly write to the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive and par­ty chair­man, for­mal­ly ex­press­ing their in­ter­est.  Ar­ti­cle 9, Sec­tion 13 of the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion ex­plains it is a par­ty group’s du­ty to nom­i­nate per­sons for elec­tion, and nom­i­na­tions would then be for­ward­ed to the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive through the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive. 

A can­di­date must have the back­ing of at least one par­ty.  The PNM’s Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy has 23 par­ty groups, and each par­ty group has a min­i­mum of 20 mem­bers. 

Chair of the PNM Diego Mar­tin West Con­stituen­cy Jack­ie Lazarus told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that she had yet to re­ceive nom­i­na­tions from any of the 23 PNM par­ty groups, the PNM Women’s League, or its Youth League.

The dead­line for nom­i­na­tions to be sub­mit­ted is Jan­u­ary 28.

Browne served as MP for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral for two terms from 2007 to 2010 while in gov­ern­ment and again from 2010 un­til 2015 as a mem­ber of the Op­po­si­tion. 

The Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy al­so re­ceived ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est from Yokym­ma Bethelmy.

In a let­ter to the Diego Mar­tin West Con­stituen­cy Sec­re­tary, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 14th, Bethelmy iden­ti­fied her­self as “a proud mem­ber of Par­ty Group 43)."

Bethelmy has served in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties across Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West and Arou­ca/Mal­oney. She has been a so­cial me­dia of­fi­cer, youth of­fi­cer, and is the cur­rent la­dy vice-chair­man of the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive. 

US Am­bas­sador pays fi­nal vis­it to Browne 

Ear­li­er in the day, Browne re­ceived a cour­tesy vis­it from US Am­bas­sador to T&T Can­dace Bond, as she said her of­fi­cial good­byes, mark­ing the end of her tenure in the coun­try.  To show his grat­i­tude for the am­bas­sador’s ser­vice to this coun­try for a lit­tle over two years be­gin­ning in 2022, Min­is­ter Browne gift­ed the am­bas­sador with a met­al sculp­ture that was de­signed by lo­cal artist De­bra Evans.  En­ti­tled Ob­scu­ra, which means mask, the sculp­ture was de­signed to show­case and cel­e­brate the rich cul­ture of Car­ni­val, as masks were tra­di­tion­al­ly worn to pro­tect the iden­ti­ties of peo­ple who want­ed to break away from the re­stric­tive be­hav­iour and par­take in car­ni­val ri­val­ry.  The gift was well re­ceived by Am­bas­sador Bond, who ex­pressed her love for T&T’s Car­ni­val.