Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion UNC’s le­gal team is en­sur­ing that all of its can­di­dates’ doc­u­ments and sta­tus com­ply with the law for to­mor­row’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cise—and that in­cludes the UNC’s Tu­na­puna can­di­date David Nakhid.

In to­mor­row’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cise, can­di­dates must reg­is­ter with the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s (EBC) Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers in the 41 con­stituen­cies to con­test the Au­gust 10 poll.

They’ll al­so be pay­ing their $5,000 de­posit to con­test.

Can­di­dates must meet cri­te­ria un­der the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple’s Act to qual­i­fy.

They must be 18 years and over, a T&T cit­i­zen and be res­i­dent here for two years be­fore Nom­i­na­tion Day. Those who are in­el­i­gi­ble to con­test are peo­ple who have dual cit­i­zen­ship, are de­clared bank­rupt, are men­tal­ly ill un­der the Men­tal Health Act, are serv­ing a sen­tence, or are not qual­i­fied to be reg­is­tered.

UNC sources said there had been con­cerns re­cent­ly about Nakhid’s el­i­gi­bil­i­ty re­gard­ing the as­pect of be­ing domi­ciled here for the re­quired two-year pe­ri­od.

The UNC’s at­tor­neys—in­clud­ing past Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans – have been vet­ting doc­u­ments of all can­di­dates in­clud­ing on Nakhid’s mat­ter.

Yes­ter­day the UNC Cam­paign Man­ag­er Fer­ose Khan said the le­gal team was en­sur­ing all prospec­tive can­di­dates’ re­quire­ments were met re­gard­ing the law.

UNC Tu­na­puna cam­paign man­ag­er Ham­lyn Jailal said Nakhid ful­filled all con­di­tions, and UNC PRO Ani­ta Haynes as­sured Nakhid will present his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at 9 am to­mor­row at the of­fice of the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer in Tu­na­puna.

Haynes al­so con­firmed the par­ty last week changed its Lopinot Bon Air West can­di­date from Tris­ton Bon­terre to Prakash Williams.

She couldn’t give specifics why save to say Bon­terre with­drew “for per­son­al rea­sons”.

She added that all can­di­dates were prospec­tive un­til con­firmed on Nom­i­na­tion Day.

The PNM al­so had to change its ini­tial Port-of-Spain South can­di­date Cleopa­tra Borel—af­ter dual cit­i­zen­ship is­sues—and re­place her with Kei­th Scot­land. The PNM al­so changed ini­tial D’Abadie/O’Meara can­di­date An­cil An­toine af­ter he de­scribed the US as a “s---hole coun­try” at a cam­paign of­fice open­ing.

Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian re­placed An­toine.

On whether UNC would heed the ap­peals of some Cou­va North con­stituents to change new can­di­date Ravi Rati­ram, Haynes said all can­di­dates are prospec­tive un­til com­ple­tion of Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cis­es—but added that she didn’t know if a change was like­ly.

For to­mor­row’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cise, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will file her doc­u­ments at 11 am at the of­fice of the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer in Siparia.

UNC San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date Sean Sobers will file his at 9 am at the San Fer­nan­do West Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer’s lo­ca­tion.

Oth­er UNC can­di­dates’ fil­ing time in­clude 9 am for Ani­ta Haynes (Tabaquite), Sad­dam Ho­sein (San Juan Barataria), Ahloy Hunt (St Joseph).

UNC’s Jear­lean John (La Hor­quet­ta Tal­paro) will file hers at 10 am and Roodal Mooni­lal (Oropouche East) be­tween 10/11 am

PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley will file his pa­pers to­mor­row morn­ing in Diego Mar­tin West. PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing said oth­er PNM can­di­dates will file their nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments be­tween 9 am and 11 am at the re­spec­tive Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers’ lo­ca­tions.

So far ap­prox­i­mate­ly 13 par­ties par­tic­i­pat­ing in the elec­tion have over 133 can­di­dates.

There are al­so a num­ber of in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates con­test­ing. The lat­est par­ty to an­nounce its line-up was Phillip Alexan­der’s Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) which has 31 can­di­dates.

The fi­nal fig­ures of the num­ber of com­pet­ing par­tic­i­pants will fol­low af­ter the close of to­mor­row’s ex­er­cise.