Sec­ondary school teacher Mar­isha Al­vara­do is the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) new prospec­tive 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­date for Tabaquite.

The an­nounce­ment was made by PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the par­ty’s Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters yes­ter­day.

Al­vara­do, 36, is PNM’s fi­nal pick, com­plet­ing its promised full slate of 41 can­di­dates ahead of the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Prime min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young said the PNM will in­tro­duce all its can­di­dates at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, on Sun­day.

A proud Young said the PNM al­ways knew it would be the first po­lit­i­cal par­ty to an­nounce all of its can­di­dates.

Young said, “The bat­tle lines have been drawn. The PNM has joined the bat­tle, once again lead­ing from the front... 41 in­di­vid­u­als who are pre­sent­ing them­selves as mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion to the elec­tion of 2025.”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Al­vara­do said she’s ready to get to work.

“I am very en­thu­si­as­tic, and I am very ex­cit­ed to get the work done to start walk­ing on the ground and to hear the con­cerns of the con­stituents... I was born and bred in the Tabaquite, Spring­vale, Clax­ton Bay. My jour­ney in­to pol­i­tics is root­ed in my com­mit­ment to ser­vice. I have al­ways been very pas­sion­ate about ed­u­ca­tion. I have my own tu­tor­ing foun­da­tion, and I am a sec­ondary school teacher.”

Al­vara­do was the sole nom­i­nee to be screened and cho­sen by PNM’s screen­ing com­mit­tee yes­ter­day.

Last month, the screen­ing com­mit­tee dropped its ini­tial Tabaquite can­di­date, Anil Ramjit, af­ter he lost the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive’s sup­port.

How­ev­er, Ramjit said he was blind­sided by the par­ty and made cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions against cer­tain con­stituen­cy mem­bers.

Asked what her re­la­tion­ship with the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive was at present, Al­vara­do said she has a very good re­la­tion­ship with them, call­ing them “hard­work­ing.” She said she was ex­cit­ed to work along­side them.

How­ev­er, she de­clined to com­ment on Ramjit.

Mean­while, Young re­mained tightlipped about the date for the next gen­er­al elec­tion, on­ly say­ing, “Stand­by and you will see things un­fold.”

He al­so did not want to re­veal when he would be in­au­gu­rat­ed as prime min­is­ter fol­low­ing Dr Row­ley’s fi­nal day on Sun­day.

Asked if he was con­cerned about any le­gal chal­lenges when it’s comes to the trans­fer of prime min­is­ter­ship he may face from the Op­po­si­tion, he said, “That’s not for me to ex­pect. We know what we are do­ing, and I am not go­ing to spec­u­late. That is just cer­tain­ly not how I am so we will go along with the course. We will al­ways fol­low the law.”

The PNM al­so held a spe­cial gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s screen­ing.

It was the par­ty’s fi­nal gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing with Dr Row­ley as Prime Min­is­ter, so it was fes­tive at­mos­phere as mem­bers en­joyed cock­tails.