Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) faced an un­ex­pect­ed set­back to its screen­ing ex­er­cise on Fri­day due to elec­tri­cal is­sues at its cen­tral head­quar­ters.

Nom­i­nees for Diego Mar­tin North/East, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin West and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la were sched­uled to be screened at the par­ty’s Mulchan Seuchan Road, Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters at 6 pm. How­ev­er, parts of the build­ing were left in dark­ness when around 4.30 pm a loud ex­plo­sion was heard and smoke be­gan em­a­nat­ing from a main split­ter box lo­cat­ed at the front of the build­ing. About an hour lat­er of­fi­cials from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) ar­rived.

As the team worked to as­sess the is­sue, par­ty mem­bers man­aged to get the back­up gen­er­a­tor up and run­ning, how­ev­er, the screen­ing ex­er­cis­es were moved from the build­ing’s sec­ond floor to the ground floor due to the elec­tri­cal chal­lenges.

Yes­ter­day, the par­ty was sup­posed to con­clude its screen­ing ex­er­cise for can­di­dates to con­test the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, how­ev­er, UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed that the time­line has been pushed back. She as­sured that all suc­cess­ful can­di­dates will be named. Can­di­dates for on­ly eight seats have been named so far.

“I had shared with you that there were a cou­ple peo­ple we did not screen and we had to throw over, but the last group­ing will be to­day. The three Diego Mar­tins and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la will be screened to­day. We hope to com­plete this en­tire process by the end of Feb­ru­ary. You will get your re­sults as soon as they are ready.”

The Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la seat drew par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment by in­cum­bent MP Rai Rag­bir that he would not seek re-elec­tion with the UNC af­ter he crit­i­cised the lead­er­ship and prin­ci­ples of the par­ty. Among those hop­ing to get the nod for the seat is Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dami­an Ly­der. Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that de­spite Rag­bir’s de­ci­sion the par­ty will se­cure the seat with­out him.

“Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la with or with­out Rai we will win, it is a very strong UNC seat and the task is for us to find the best can­di­date. They are all con­cerned, they want to get a per­son from their com­mu­ni­ty. Dr Rai was not from the com­mu­ni­ty, the pre­vi­ous can­di­date was al­so not from there so it is some­thing to keep in mind.”

It was al­so ex­pect­ed that Phillip Alexan­der, leader of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) was among those to be screened for one of the Diego Mar­tin con­stituen­cies. The UNC has en­tered in­to a coali­tion of in­ter­ests with the PEP and sev­er­al trade union or­gan­i­sa­tions.

In the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion Alexan­der un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged the PNM’s Colm Im­bert for the Diego Mar­tin North/ East seat.

He sub­se­quent­ly stepped down as par­ty leader af­ter­wards.

Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Pas­tor Keron Thomas is among the nom­i­nees for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral while re­tired school teacher, Nali­ni Goin­doo, threw her hat in the race for Diego Mar­tin North/East.