Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Phillip Watts is now the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy and will be con­test­ing against in­cum­bent PNM MP Fos­ter Cum­mings in the forth­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

The UNC yes­ter­day an­nounced ex-PN­Mite Watts as its ninth can­di­date, af­ter he was screened last week. The UNC, which is con­test­ing 39 Trinidad seats out of the to­tal 41 seats in T&T, had an­nounced on­ly ten can­di­dates up to re­cent­ly.

Watts was the PNM’s con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro for 14 years. He served un­der for­mer PNM MP Max­ie Cuffie and for some time un­der cur­rent MP Cum­mings.

In an­nounc­ing Watt’s can­di­da­cy yes­ter­day, the UNC de­scribed the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro seat as “mar­gin­al” for the up­com­ing 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions.

“We are con­fi­dent that Mr Watts will fi­nal­ly pro­vide con­stituents with re­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion and progress, which the in­cum­bent has so con­spic­u­ous­ly failed to do,” said UNC PRO Kirk Meighoo.

Meighoo sub­mit­ted Watts’ bi­og­ra­phy, which stat­ed that he is “an es­tab­lished busi­ness­man with 23+ years in lead­er­ship, busi­ness, project man­age­ment and pol­i­tics.”

“He is spe­cialised in strate­gic plan­ning and man­age­ment, has suc­cess­ful­ly dri­ven growth and de­vel­op­ment in a wide range of busi­ness and po­lit­i­cal en­deav­ours lo­cal­ly and abroad. Phillip is pas­sion­ate about com­mu­ni­ty and youth de­vel­op­ment and has spon­sored and ded­i­cat­ed years to be­ing a leader in the in­no­va­tion of im­pact­ful ini­tia­tives that em­pow­er in­di­vid­u­als and strength­en com­mu­ni­ties,” the UNC said.

It added, “His ex­per­tise in nav­i­gat­ing com­plex cor­po­rate and po­lit­i­cal land­scapes makes him a dy­nam­ic and re­sults-dri­ven pro­fes­sion­al com­mit­ted to ex­cel­lent and pos­i­tive change.”

Watts holds an Ex­ec­u­tive Mas­ters in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion from the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School Busi­ness.

The UNC didn’t men­tion Watts’ past po­lit­i­cal ties with the PNM. But this was ac­knowl­edged yes­ter­day by var­i­ous PNM ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and oth­er PN­Mites.

Watts didn’t re­spond to calls yes­ter­day.

But he was one of three peo­ple who was screened by the UNC for the seat last week.

The UNC lost the seat to PNM’s Cum­mings by about 1,900 votes in the 2020 elec­tion, UNC of­fi­cials said. They added that the UNC has been do­ing a lot of ground­work in the La Hor­quet­ta and Green­vale ar­eas - PNM strong­holds - since 2020, and this would have been the dri­ving force which en­cour­aged Watts to “come across” to UNC. They said a num­ber of PNM ac­tivists have al­so pledged sup­port to work with Watts in the UNC and due to his pop­u­lar­i­ty as for­mer PNM chair­man in the seat, there are high hopes that apart from UNC’s sup­port in the Las Lo­mas/Brazil ar­eas, he can make in­roads in­to the La Hor­quet­ta ar­eas and “bring the seat home for UNC.”

The UNC is ex­pect­ed to re­sume pub­lic meet­ings next week, in­clud­ing in Moru­ga/Table­land, and Watts is ex­pect­ed to be among speak­ers on its plat­form.

Last week, the UNC is­sued a state­ment say­ing the par­ty’s screen­ing process had end­ed last Tues­day. How­ev­er, yes­ter­day’s state­ment by Meighoo quot­ed him say­ing, “As we ap­proach these cru­cial gen­er­al elec­tions, the par­ty con­tin­ues its screen­ing process and par­ty mo­bil­i­sa­tion. The UNC stands ready to save T&T from the decade of de­struc­tion un­der Kei­th Row­ley, Stu­art Young and the PNM.”