Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

“Fire­works” start­ed even be­fore to­day’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress screen­ing of so-called dis­si­dent Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, by mem­bers of the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive whom he fought in last year’s in­ter­nal polls.

Paray’s claimed he ’s re­ject­ed var­i­ous pro­pos­als from “in­ter­me­di­aries,” in­clud­ing a Sen­ate seat if he’d step aside, but UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and MP Bar­ry Padarath have called him out to re­veal who made the pro­pos­als.

“No one was au­tho­rised by my­self or the par­ty to have any such dis­cus­sions with Paray ... Call their names, pro­vide the ev­i­dence!” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day in re­sponse to Paray’s claims.

Both the UNC and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) are do­ing screen­ing to­day (See sto­ry be­low).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said last week that while the par­ty aimed to com­plete screen­ing this week, se­lec­tions won’t be an­nounced yet. Screen­ing to­day is for Ma­yaro, Cou­va North, Cou­va South and Ca­roni Cen­tral, start­ing from 7 pm at UNC’s Ch­agua­nas head of­fice. Screen­ing con­tin­ues on Wednes­day.

The UNC, which is field­ing can­di­dates for 39 Trinidad seats, had screened for 21 ar­eas and an­nounced eight can­di­dates up to Fri­day.

Those screened last Fri­day in­clud­ed in­cum­bents Per­sad-Bisses­sar (Siparia), Roodal Mooni­lal (Oropouche East), David Lee (Clax­ton Bay for­mer­ly Pointe-a-Pierre), Padarath (Princes Town) and five per­sons for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro. Screen­ing for the lat­ter was in­com­plete, of­fi­cials said. They sig­nalled Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Mooni­lal, Lee and Padarath would ob­vi­ous­ly be re­turned to con­test.

In the Ma­yaro spot­light to­day, apart from Paray, oth­er nom­i­nees are cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er and Don­ny Ma­habirs­ingh. Ex-Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine isn’t among nom­i­nees, it was con­firmed.

UNC of­fi­cials said to­day will be the first time since ear­ly 2024 that Paray will speak face-to-face with Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who heads the screen­ing team.

“It’s al­so the first time he’ll be in­ter­viewed by the screen­ing team, which in­volves ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers whom he and his team fought in the 2024 in­ter­nals. All ac­tions and state­ments are tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion in nom­i­nees’ per­for­mance - every­thing’s fair game,” a UNC source said.

Paray, in March 2024, had chal­lenged the lead­er­ship to call the in­ter­nal elec­tions by June. He led the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate against Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Stars slate for the poll. Sup­port­ing him were MPs Ani­ta Haynes- Al­leyne, Dr Rai Rag­bir, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Rod­ney Charles.

In a bit­ter­ly con­test­ed elec­tion, Paray’s team lost and MPs on Paray’s UP slate be­came known as “dis­si­dents.” Paray re­cent­ly said some Ma­yaro con­stituents were con­cerned about when his screen­ing would be and had vowed “No Paray, no UNC vote.”. Paray as­sured them he want­ed to be screened and is solid­ly with UNC.

Kam­la, Bar­ry call out Paray

Yes­ter­day, Paray said he’d is­sue a for­mal state­ment on his screen­ing process “at the ap­pro­pri­ate time.”

On his chances, he said, “If the se­lec­tion is based on mer­it, I be­lieve my chances are ex­cel­lent.”

But Paray, who said he’d been ap­proached to step aside, added, “I’ve been ap­proached through in­ter­me­di­aries with var­i­ous pro­pos­als, in­clud­ing a Sen­ate seat. My re­sponse is clear—my pri­or­i­ty is Ma­yaro, and I don’t com­pro­mise on prin­ci­ples.”

He de­clined to say who the ap­proach­es came from.

How­ev­er, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “As UNC leader, I can say that no one was au­tho­rised by my­self or the par­ty to have any such dis­cus­sions with Paray. He should there­fore dis­close to the pub­lic who are the per­sons of­fer­ing him these pro­pos­als.”

“If he did make these state­ments, he must not hide be­hind anony­mous per­sons. Call their names, pro­vide the ev­i­dence and let them ac­count to the par­ty for mak­ing these al­leged over­tures.”

Padarath added, “The MP should stop hid­ing be­hind shad­ows and name who’s made these of­fers. The on­ly per­son who can make any of­fer of sen­a­tor­ship is the po­lit­i­cal leader. I can tell you for a fact Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is a leader who doesn’t work through in­ter­me­di­aries - she’s a straight shoot­er.

“He should stop try­ing to take UNC’s mem­ber­ship for fools. Mem­bers vot­ed re­sound­ing­ly in 2024 for who they want­ed and who they didn’t want.”

Rush­ton: I’ll fol­low con­stituents’ ad­vice

Paray yes­ter­day al­so echoed con­cerns by fel­low “dis­si­dent” Rai Rag­bir, who with­drew from screen­ing last week.

Paray said, “In­di­vid­u­als fac­ing crim­i­nal charges, fraud in­ves­ti­ga­tions, or se­ri­ous cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions shouldn’t be part of a screen­ing com­mit­tee. How­ev­er, that de­ci­sion is be­yond my con­trol.

“I’ve en­gaged with stake­hold­ers, com­mu­ni­ty groups, and par­ty sup­port­ers across Ma­yaro. Their key con­cerns in­clude ris­ing crime/se­cu­ri­ty is­sues, eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion and lack of job op­por­tu­ni­ties, poor road in­fra­struc­ture, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing pub­lic ser­vices and a widen­ing gap be­tween par­ty lead­er­ship and grass­roots mem­bers.”

He added, “The peo­ple of Ma­yaro ex­pect the UNC to pri­ori­tise their needs and se­lect rep­re­sen­ta­tives based on com­pe­tence, elec­tabil­i­ty, and com­mit­ment—not fac­tion­al loy­al­ty. If I’m not se­lect­ed, I’ll con­sult with the peo­ple of Ma­yaro and fol­low their ad­vice.”