Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion UNC will re­sume its front­line con­stituen­cy meet­ings next Mon­day in the mar­gin­al seat of San Fer­nan­do West, which is among five PNM-held seats the par­ty is aim­ing to win in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Par­ty sources have tipped for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege prin­ci­pal Dr Michael Dowlath as the UNC’s top choice for the San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date.

Mon­day’s meet­ing in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy was agreed up­on dur­ing the UNC’s Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing at the start of this week on No­vem­ber 4.

Lat­er that day, UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment com­ment­ing on is­sues in the PNM as well as de­liv­er­ing an up­date on the par­ty’s screen­ing process.

The par­ty’s pub­lic Mon­day meet­ings have been on hold since the end of Sep­tem­ber due to the 2025 bud­get de­bate.

When it re­sumes such meet­ings next week, par­ty sources said the fo­cus will be on con­stituen­cies the UNC is par­tic­u­lar­ly tar­get­ing to reach its gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry goal of 25 seats.

Oth­er seats the UNC is tar­get­ing are St Joseph, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, To­co/San­gre Grande, and Tu­na­puna.

Mon­day’s UNC meet­ing will be at the Na­pari­ma Col­lege au­di­to­ri­um.

Speak­ers aside from Per­sad-Bisses­sar are ex­pect­ed to in­clude for­mer Na­pari­ma school prin­ci­pal Dr Michael Dowlath, who par­ty sources said is in the run­ning to be the UNC’s San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date.

The par­ty has al­ready fea­tured Dowlath speak­ing on ed­u­ca­tion is­sues at one of its Sun­day press con­fer­ences, and he’s al­so spo­ken on the top­ic of ed­u­ca­tion at the UNC’s bud­get con­sul­ta­tions in San Fer­nan­do West.

NTA elec­tion prepa­ra­tions

Mean­while, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance, head­ed by Gary Grif­fith, has se­lect­ed him as the of­fi­cial can­di­date for the St Joseph con­stituen­cy. It has al­so se­lect­ed cus­to­di­ans and pos­si­ble can­di­dates for oth­er seats.

More prospec­tive can­di­dates are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced soon, in­clud­ing for the San Fer­nan­do West seat.

Ac­cord­ing to NTA of­fi­cials, pos­si­ble can­di­dates in­clude Er­rol Fa­bi­en (Point Fortin), Gail Gon­salves-Ca­s­tan­da (Port-of-Spain South), Nico­lene Tay­lor Chin­chamee (Arou­ca/Lopinot), Nor­man Din­di­al (Ch­agua­nas East), In­saf Enightoola (Barataria/San Juan), and Rus­sel Chan (Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral).

Grif­fith added, “NTA will con­tin­ue to do screen­ing and short­ly will an­nounce sev­er­al oth­er cus­to­di­ans who, if there’s no al­liance with any oth­er par­ty, will most prob­a­bly be­come our can­di­dates. We’ll be an­nounc­ing the cus­to­di­an/pos­si­ble can­di­dates for San Fer­nan­do West, Ari­ma, San­gre Grande, and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro.”

He said the NTA aims to form al­liances with oth­er par­ties that have sim­i­lar prin­ci­ples.

The NTA has been in talks to­wards an al­liance with the HOPE par­ty. HOPE in Sep­tem­ber is­sued a call for peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing sev­en UNC-held seats and sev­en PNM-held seats.

HOPE leader Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith had said the par­ty was hav­ing a round­table work­shop on No­vem­ber 20, “by which time we’ll have much more to re­veal.”

HOPE re­cent­ly in­di­cat­ed to some es­tranged UNC MPs that its doors are open. But par­ty sources said so far there has been no re­sponse.