DA­REECE PO­LO

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is ex­pect­ed to meet with a prospec­tive can­di­date for the Point Fortin con­stituen­cy to­mor­row.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the an­nounce­ment last night as she field­ed ques­tions from the me­dia at the UNC’s head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas dur­ing an­oth­er round of screen­ing for gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates.

She said the can­di­date has been pro­posed by the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), one of the mem­bers of an al­liance with the UNC.

This de­vel­op­ment comes as the par­ty works to fi­nalise its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the OW­TU, the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), and the Laven­tille Out­reach for Ver­ti­cal En­rich­ment (LOVE) — three groups which form part of their new­ly forged “coali­tion of in­ter­ests.”

“The OW­TU has agreed to field a can­di­date with us. They’ve agreed to use the UNC lo­go. So, yes, we’ll be go­ing to­geth­er but it will be an OW­TU choice. They will bring their per­son, we will meet them. We are not screen­ing them in the same way that we will screen the UNC per­sons but we will have sight of them and any con­cerns could be raised,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained.

She al­so men­tioned that an­oth­er group is con­sid­er­ing field­ing a can­di­date for the La Brea seat, and that in­di­vid­ual will al­so un­der­go screen­ing to­mor­row.

In the case of PEP, led by Phillip Alexan­der, Per­sad-Bisses­sar clar­i­fied that the par­ty was still de­cid­ing which seats it will con­test in the west of the coun­try, specif­i­cal­ly in Diego Mar­tin East, Diego Mar­tin West and Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral.

“They have a niche mar­ket”, she not­ed.

“PEP has their peo­ple and their sup­port in the West and that’s how we’ll work it—where they have a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage,” she said.

She said LOVE is con­sid­er­ing putting for­ward a can­di­date for ei­ther Laven­tille East/Mor­vant or Laven­tille West.

When asked about To­ba­go, Per­sad-Bisses­sar em­pha­sised the is­land’s res­i­dents should have the free­dom to choose their lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The UNC, she not­ed, will not be putting for­ward a can­di­date there, though she ex­pressed no reser­va­tions about pos­si­bly join­ing forces with the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty led by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

“We are al­ways open to all those who are will­ing to work for the bet­ter­ment and de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

As to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a coali­tion with the TPP af­ter the elec­tions, she re­spond­ed, “In life, all things are pos­si­ble.”

Dur­ing last night’s screen­ing ses­sion, the UNC re­viewed can­di­dates for the Cou­va North, Cou­va South, Tu­na­puna, Ca­roni Cen­tral, and Ma­yaro con­stituen­cies, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of screened seats to 31. How­ev­er, on­ly eight can­di­dates have been of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced so far by the par­ty.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said mul­ti­ple nom­i­nees be­ing screened for each seat “is a good sign” of democ­ra­cy at play in the UNC, though she not­ed it is not easy for the screen­ing com­mit­tee to re­duce the num­bers.

She al­so dou­bled down on not re­veal­ing the can­di­dates im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter screen­ing.

“Our vi­sion is to get the best team for­ward. So, when every­body comes and all the hats are on the ta­ble, all the hands are on the ta­ble, we can pick a team that will give us a bet­ter team to gov­ern Trinidad and To­ba­go. So, while we look for good reps per con­stituen­cy, all those per­sons will make up a gov­ern­ing team and, there­fore, will give us a bet­ter chance at the end of the day ... we have them all on the ta­ble and then we can choose. It is not an easy job.”

She said once the op­po­si­tion wins the elec­tion, no­body will be left be­hind as there will be va­cant po­si­tions to be filled for every­one, in­clud­ing those who may not have been se­lect­ed.