Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, Fos­ter Cum­mings, has de­nounced mount­ing al­le­ga­tions that the par­ty’s screen­ing ex­er­cise has been marred with con­tro­ver­sy.

So far, 32 con­stituen­cies have been screened and can­di­dates de­clared. Nom­i­nees for both La Brea and Laven­tille East/Mor­vant will be screened to­day. How­ev­er, there have been claims that sev­er­al par­ty groups have been giv­en par­tic­u­lar in­struc­tions on who should be se­lect­ed as a can­di­date. It has been wide­ly spec­u­lat­ed that it is be­cause of this that For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne with­drew his name from chal­leng­ing for the Diego Mar­tin West seat. How­ev­er, Fos­ter Cum­mings re­butted the claims when con­front­ed on Wednes­day. “Do not pay at­ten­tion to ru­mours. The PNM is a very or­gan­ised par­ty, and it is struc­tured from the base up from the par­ty groups, Women’s League, and Youth League that make nom­i­na­tions, and even if you have an in­ter­est in con­test­ing, you will have to start at those lev­els and get those groups to nom­i­nate you; that is the par­ty process.”

Cum­mings al­so put to rest claims that in­cum­bent Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce was set to present him­self be­fore the screen­ing com­mit­tee to­day. Leonce had pre­vi­ous­ly con­firmed he would no longer be go­ing up for rep­re­sen­ta­tive pol­i­tics, cit­ing fam­i­ly rea­sons. How­ev­er, par­ty groups were pre­pared to en­dorse him if he had a change of heart.

“The last in­for­ma­tion I have is that the names that are be­fore us on Thurs­day does not in­clude the cur­rent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, so we look at the screen­ing on Thurs­day and take things from there.

Cum­mings was speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing an in­ter­faith ser­vice and launch of the In­ter­na­tion­al Year of Co­op­er­a­tives on Wednes­day at the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies.