Derek Achong

A small po­lit­i­cal par­ty seek­ing to con­test three seats in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion has threat­ened to at­tempt to ob­tain an in­junc­tion to post­pone the Au­gust 10 polls if spe­cial arrange­ments are not put in place to al­low one of its prospec­tive can­di­dates, who is strand­ed abroad, to sub­mit his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers. 

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter is­sued on Tues­day to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, at­tor­ney Ken­neth Munroe Brown, leader of the Un­rep­re­sent­ed Peo­ple’s Par­ty (UPP), ques­tioned Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s han­dling of sev­er­al ap­pli­ca­tions made by the par­ty’s chair­man Bish­op Ronald De Ver­teuil, who is cur­rent­ly strand­ed in South Africa due to COVID-19 pan­dem­ic trav­el re­stric­tions. 

“Sad­ly, we have in­struc­tions be­fore us which sug­gest that the Min­is­ter ei­ther ig­nored, re­fused, dis­re­gard­ed or over­looked our client’s ap­pli­ca­tion to the point where his chances of meet­ing the Nom­i­na­tion Day dead­line of Ju­ly 17, 2020, are at best slim, if not, giv­en the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of dis­tance, time and place un­at­tain­able,” Brown said. 

Point­ing out that Young had fa­cil­i­tat­ed re­quests for Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can­di­dates who were al­so strand­ed abroad due to the bor­der clo­sure, Brown called on Row­ley to speak with the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion and Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar so that he (De Ver­teuil) reg­is­ter re­mote­ly or af­ter to­day’s nom­i­na­tion dead­line. 

“Coun­sel has ad­vised that your Min­is­ter has an abid­ing and un­shake­able du­ty to re­spond to our client’s ap­pli­ca­tion and giv­en re­cent prece­dents, a right to pro­vide our client with the ex­emp­tion on the ba­sis of le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tions, to al­low him to en­ter in­to our Re­pub­lic and un­der quar­an­tine for a pe­ri­od of sev­en years,” Brown said. 

Brown sug­gest­ed that if the re­quest is not fa­cil­i­tat­ed the par­ty will con­sid­er tak­ing the pro­posed le­gal ac­tion to post­pone the elec­tion. 

“In the premis­es, we trust that giv­en the pre­vail­ing and ex­ten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances, you will use your great wis­dom and sagac­i­ty (as was dis­played dur­ing a time of COVID-19), to avoid a long drawn-out court bat­tle with risks that the re­sult of at least one seat, be­ing void­ed by the Supreme Court,” he said. In the let­ter, Brown not­ed that De Ver­teuil, who al­so serves as Unit­ed Front for African De­vel­op­ment pres­i­dent, was ex­pect­ed to con­test a seat and man­age the par­ty’s cam­paign and elec­tion ma­chin­ery. The par­ty plans to con­test the Port-of-Spain/St Ann’s West, To­ba­go East and Tabaquite seats. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Brown did not re­ceive a re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.