RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As news spread that Rush­ton Paray, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, and Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al were re­ject­ed by the UNC's Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive and will not be con­test­ing the Ma­yaro, Tabaquite and Na­pari­ma seats re­spec­tive­ly, long-stand­ing par­ty mem­bers ex­pressed frus­tra­tion and dis­ap­point­ment over the de­ci­sion.

Nico­las Mor­ris has been se­lect­ed for Ma­yaro while Dr Narindra Roop­nar­ine, has been giv­en the Na­pari­ma seat, ahead of Kami­ni Ram­raj, who was en­dorsed by for­mer Na­pari­ma MP Nizam Baksh.

A source told Guardian Me­dia that Paray was in­formed via a What­sApp chat that he had not been se­lect­ed.

Paray in a state­ment ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Ma­yaro res­i­dents say­ing "serv­ing the peo­ple of Ma­yaro has been the great­est ho­n­our of my life. Over the years, I have worked along­side many ded­i­cat­ed cit­i­zens, stand­ing up for the is­sues that mat­ter most and striv­ing to make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence in our com­mu­ni­ty."

He ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the trust placed in him say­ing: "Your re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion have been my great­est in­spi­ra­tion. While this chap­ter may be clos­ing, my com­mit­ment to ser­vice and to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go is far from over. The jour­ney con­tin­ues, and I look for­ward to the op­por­tu­ni­ties ahead to keep work­ing for the progress and pros­per­i­ty of our na­tion."

He end­ed his state­ment say­ing: "This is not good­bye, but rather, see you soon."

Mean­while, Haynes-Al­leyne could not be reached for com­ment, but sources close to her said she had de­cid­ed to de­fer com­ment as well.

While Paray and Haynes-Al­leyne's re­jec­tion were un­ex­pect­ed, par­ty sources said some were ex­pect­ing Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al to be giv­en Na­pari­ma, af­ter she was side­lined from the San Fer­nan­do West seat in which she had been ac­tive since the 2020 elec­tions.

An of­fi­cial from Na­pari­ma ex­pressed dis­con­tent in a mes­sage say­ing: "The an­nounce­ment of the can­di­date for Na­pari­ma has left us deeply dis­ap­point­ed yet again. At this point, we find our­selves at a loss, un­cer­tain of the next steps to take. Per­haps the best course of ac­tion is to let this elec­tion run its course and ob­serve how events un­fold, as we brace our­selves for an­oth­er term in op­po­si­tion. It is clear that we must re­group and de­vise a sol­id plan to re­place the cur­rent lead­er­ship with in­di­vid­u­als who pos­sess a stronger vi­sion for the fu­ture. Kam­la has once again ma­neu­vered skill­ful­ly to sup­press her own sup­port­ers, per­fect­ing the art of re­main­ing in op­po­si­tion."

Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that Vi­jay Go­sine was se­lect­ed for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la.

On Sat­ur­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced Roger Alexan­der as the can­di­date for Tu­na­puna, but par­ty in­sid­ers claimed he was nev­er screened ac­cord­ing to process.

The source al­so claimed that Alexan­der was not the on­ly law en­force­ment of­fi­cer be­ing cho­sen to con­test the elec­tion for the UNC, which has built its cam­paign on failed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the col­lapse of the econ­o­my.

The source said De­o­dat Du­lalchan, a for­mer As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er is be­ing con­sid­ered for the seat of Ch­agua­nas West.

Ear­li­er this week, the UNC launched its gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign at Na­pari­ma Col­lege in San Fer­nan­do, in­tro­duc­ing sev­er­al can­di­dates. Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed plans to roll out ad­di­tion­al can­di­dates dai­ly lead­ing up to Nom­i­na­tion Day on April 4.