KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

In­cum­bent Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce is ready to pass the ba­ton on to Chris­t­ian Birch­wood, the PNM’s pick for Laven­tille East/Mor­vant ahead of the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Birch­wood was giv­en the nod by the PNM’s screen­ing com­mit­tee over four oth­er nom­i­nees on Thurs­day.

Con­grat­u­lat­ing the en­gi­neer from Co­conut Dri­ve, Mor­vant, Leonce said he ad­mired that he had of­fered him­self for ser­vice.

Send­ing a mes­sage to his re­place­ment yes­ter­day, Leonce said, “I would like to first con­grat­u­late you on be­ing the can­di­date of choice to rep­re­sent Laven­tille East/Mor­vant. I ad­mire your de­ci­sion to sac­ri­fice and of­fer your­self for ser­vice. As I would al­ways say, ‘Ser­vice is the great­est ex­pres­sion of love.’” Laven­tille East/Mor­vant is be­hind you, and we pray Almighty God or­ders our steps and guides us to achiev­ing a uni­fied, sus­tain­able, God-fear­ing com­mu­ni­ty that shines as a bea­con in this na­tion. Con­tin­ue a good run, my broth­er, as I hand you this ba­ton.”

He al­so asked his con­stituents to sup­port the par­ty’s new pick.

He added, “Just as the con­stituen­cy gave me a try and there are good re­views, they should have hope in con­tin­ued growth in rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Birch­wood, he de­scribed his win in two words.

He said, “Quite re­fresh­ing and en­joy­able.”

Last month, Leonce was a no-show at the screen­ing, cit­ing per­son­al rea­sons for bow­ing out at the last minute.

As such, the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive was in­struct­ed to seek new prospec­tive can­di­dates.

The oth­er nom­i­nees screened on Thurs­day in­clud­ed na­tion­al schol­ar and for­mer tem­po­rary sen­a­tor Dr Je­re­my In­niss, teacher Tracey East­man, fu­ner­al home di­rec­tor David Simp­son, and Mor­vant coun­cil­lor Ju­nior St Hi­laire.

On Mon­day, the PNM will screen four more seats, in­clud­ing that of Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca (for­mal­ly Dabadie/O’Meara), which was once held by the late Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian.

Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Port-of-Spain South and Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, cur­rent­ly held by Stu­art Young, will be screened as well.

The last three seats to be screened are Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin North/East, and Diego Mar­tin West.