Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

It’s of­fi­cial—Rush­ton Paray has been re­ject­ed by the UNC to con­test the Ma­yaro seat, and for­mer se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der has been se­lect­ed by the UNC to con­test the PNM-held Tu­na­puna seat.

UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai last night an­nounced the changes. He said UNC’s In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs Of­fi­cer Nicholas Mor­ris will be UNC’s Ma­yaro gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­date, re­plac­ing Paray. Paray, how­ev­er, said last night in thank­ing Ma­yaro, “This is not good­bye, but rather, see you soon.”

Speak­ing at UNC’s meet­ing in North­east­ern Col­lege, San­gre Grande, Kan­hai al­so an­nounced Dr Narindra Roop­nar­ine to con­test the Na­pari­ma seat and Ca­roni East in­cum­bent Dr Rishad Seecher­an to con­test Ca­roni East again.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her ad­dress, said, “We wel­come the man him­self–Mr Alexan­der! (al­so) Dr Narindra Roop­nar­ine, Dr Rishi Seecher­an, and Nicholas Mor­ris. I’ve seen Nicholas grow and blos­som un­der my watch as his leader and fos­ter moth­er ...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said all UNC can­di­dates will be launched on April 5 and UNC’s man­i­festo pre­sent­ed on April 12.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, thank­ing all 200 nom­i­nees, said, how­ev­er, on­ly one is cho­sen for a seat. “But when UNC wins, every­body wins; there’s enough space and place at the UNC’s ta­ble.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who en­tered af­ter Alexan­der was in­tro­duced, locked up­raised hands with Alexan­der, PEP leader Philip Alexan­der, and PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas. The lat­ter al­so spoke at the meet­ing where there was heavy PSA pres­ence, in­clud­ing for­mer PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who not­ed the mur­der rate of 98 in a State of Emer­gency, added, “The UNC will get you back to liv­ing your best life–the first step is to dec­i­mate the crim­i­nals who cre­ate the vi­o­lent crime cri­sis with a holis­tic ap­proach. We have over 60 an­ti-crime plans and more than 60 jus­tice re­form plans to holis­ti­cal­ly ad­dress crime.

“We need tough peo­ple to im­ple­ment these plans ... the mus­cle man him­self, Roger Alexan­der, will be one of those per­sons to help us. We want some­one lead­ing the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs who knows the sys­tem from the ground up. Some­one who knows where the crim­i­nals are, how they op­er­ate, and how they think, and we’ll give him the pow­er and re­sources to shut down these crim­i­nal gangs and en­ter­pris­es once and for all.

“We’ll track down those vi­o­lent crim­i­nals and law­ful­ly get them off the streets and out of your com­mu­ni­ties in Tu­na­puna and the rest of the coun­try so you and your loved ones can feel safe. This is both an aca­d­e­m­ic ex­er­cise and a prac­ti­cal one that re­quires boots on the ground.”

The UNC leader said, “It re­quires in­tel­li­gence-based ap­proach­es cou­pled with a strong arm to get these vi­o­lent crim­i­nals off our streets and out of our com­mu­ni­ties. Over 5,000 mur­ders and a min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who has been sleep­ing on the job and blam­ing cit­i­zens! We’re go­ing to put re­al peo­ple in po­si­tions to achieve re­al re­sults. We’ll em­pow­er T&T se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices with strong lead­er­ship that sup­ports and ap­pre­ci­ates them.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, de­tail­ing UNC’s im­prove­ment plans for pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers, pledged to im­ple­ment the promised $1 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion for the fam­i­lies of of­fi­cers who fall in the line of du­ty.

Cit­ing the is­sues the UNC is speak­ing of, she not­ed this was al­so not­ed by PEP’s Alexan­der and ex-supt Alexan­der. “It has too many Alexan­ders in this par­ty!” she joked.

“I’m here!” –Roger Alexan­der

The an­nounce­ment of Alexan­der as UNC’s Tu­na­puna can­di­date capped spec­u­la­tion since Tues­day. Last Thurs­day, Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin said that on Wednes­day Alexan­der prof­fered a doc­u­ment stat­ing his de­sire to re­sign from TTPS. Alexan­der, with 30-plus years of TTPS ser­vice, speak­ing last night to cheers, re­spond­ed, “I’m here.” (SEE STO­RY BE­LOW)

Alexan­der will be fight­ing PNM Tu­na­puna can­di­date Es­mond Forde.

It’s not good­bye–Paray

Paray, re­ject­ed for Ma­yaro, has been UNC’s Ma­yaro MP since 2015. He screened for the seat in Feb­ru­ary with Mor­ris and Ma­yaro Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er.

Last night’s an­nounce­ment was the lat­est stop in the rocky path that Paray has trod­den since March 2024, when he chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar to hold UNC ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.

He was sup­port­ed by UNC MPs Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly (Ch­agua­nas West), Rod­ney Charles (Na­pari­ma), and Dr Rai Rag­bir (Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la). Rag­bir al­so called for lead­er­ship elec­tions. Paray led their Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots (UP) slate, con­test­ing one of the three deputy leader’s posts. In a bit­ter­ly fought in­ter­nal elec­tion–which was called in June–Paray’s UP slate lost to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Stars team.

Rag­bir, who vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment on the Whistle­blow­er bill in June 2024, was side­lined by the UNC. Four of the MPs–ex­cept Charles, who’s re­tir­ing–filed nom­i­na­tions for their re­spec­tive seats.

Ram­bal­ly and Rag­bir with­drew re­cent­ly, dis­as­so­ci­at­ing from UNC of­fi­cials. Rag­bir sub­se­quent­ly re­signed from UNC. Oth­er UP sup­port­ers al­so re­signed from the UNC or posts. Paray, when asked re­cent­ly if he would re­sign, said he wouldn’t. Can­di­da­cy for Haynes-Al­leyne’s Tabaquite seat is left to be an­nounced.

Re­spond­ing to last night’s an­nounce­ment, Paray said, “Serv­ing the peo­ple of Ma­yaro has been the great­est ho­n­our of my life. Over the years, I’ve worked along­side many ded­i­cat­ed cit­i­zens, stand­ing up for the is­sues that mat­ter most and striv­ing to make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence in our com­mu­ni­ty. I want to ex­press my deep­est grat­i­tude to the peo­ple of Ma­yaro for your un­wa­ver­ing sup­port, trust, and en­cour­age­ment. 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. Thank you, Ma­yaro—this is not good­bye, but rather, see you soon.”

Mor­ris: Prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion for Ma­yaro

Mor­ris, who re­places Paray, re­cent­ly cap­tured the sup­port of some of Paray’s team. He’s been a UNC mem­ber for 18 years, serv­ing on the UNC Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive, in­clud­ing as Youth Arm Chair­man and IR Of­fi­cer since 2015.

He’s a long­stand­ing UNC par­lia­men­tary re­searcher (en­er­gy/par­lia­men­tary af­fairs). Con­fir­ma­tion of his can­di­da­cy came a day af­ter Mor­ris ob­tained his Mas­ter’s de­gree in Oil and Gas Man­age­ment.

Speak­ing last night, Mor­ris said, “We’ll en­sure Ma­yaro wins when Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar wins! I stand be­fore you faith­ful and grate­ful, grate­ful to our po­lit­i­cal leader for the role she’s giv­en to me and oth­er youths ... moth­ers, fa­thers, and chil­dren of Guayagua­yare, Mafek­ing, Rio Claro will have prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion when we take Ma­yaro in­to gov­ern­ment!”

Mor­ris said the Row­ley/Young PNM Gov­ern­ment had col­lapsed Ma­yaro’s en­er­gy sec­tor, but Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly re­vealed a plan to make Ma­yaro the hub of the en­er­gy sec­tor: “Let’s stand to­geth­er and unite!”