Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) will to­day screen gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees for the Ch­agua­nas West and Na­pari­ma seats held by two so-called “dis­si­dent” MPs. Among those fac­ing the screen­ing pan­el will be pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer (PRO) Kirk Meighoo for Ch­agua­nas West, while for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine is among nom­i­nees for Ma­yaro, the seat of a third “dis­si­dent” MP.

The seats be­ing screened were con­firmed by UNC ex­ec­u­tives. Sources con­firmed Ram­nar­ine re­cent­ly filed a nom­i­na­tion for Ma­yaro.

Screen­ing is tak­ing place at the par­ty’s Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters. The UNC has so far se­lect­ed can­di­dates for San Fer­nan­do West, Barataria/San Juan, Ch­agua­nas East, To­co/San­gre Grande, St Joseph, Arou­ca/Lopinot, Trinci­ty/Mal­oney and San Fer­nan­do East.

In­cum­bent Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly will al­so be screened. Ram­bal­ly sup­port­ed Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, whose Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots con­test­ed the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions last year.

Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la’s Dr Rai Rag­bir al­so sup­port­ed the slate. Haynes-Al­leyne, Paray and Rag­bir have al­so filed nom­i­na­tions in the hope of re-con­test­ing their seats. Charles has bowed out of pol­i­tics.

For Ch­agua­nas West, Ram­bal­ly will con­tend with oth­er nom­i­nees to be screened to­day. Ac­cord­ing to UNC of­fi­cials, the oth­er con­tenders are Meighoo, at­tor­ney/UNC le­gal ad­vis­er Bri­an Baig and for­mer ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Neil Go­sein. Ef­forts to con­tact Meighoo yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.

Mean­while, nom­i­nees for Na­pari­ma in­clude Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al, Pe­nal doc­tor Narindra Roop­nar­ine, al­der­man/at­tor­ney Chris Ar­shad Ho­sein and sev­er­al coun­cil­lors, ac­cord­ing to of­fi­cials.

In Ma­yaro, Paray will see a chal­lenge from Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ray­mond Co­zi­er, for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Ram­nar­ine and oth­ers.

Yes­ter­day, Paray de­clined to com­ment on Ram­nar­ine’s en­try in­to the Ma­yaro race. He main­tained he’d done the nec­es­sary work over the past two terms.

“The peo­ple of Ma­yaro are anx­ious­ly await­ing my screen­ing, my can­di­da­cy and even­tu­al re­turn to of­fice.”

The UNC re­ceived sev­er­al nom­i­na­tions for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, par­ty sources said. There have been claims that Ram­nar­ine al­so filed for that seat.

But UNC Sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der, who’s among the nom­i­nees hop­ing to rep­re­sent that con­stituen­cy, said, “If Mr Ram­nar­ine filed for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, I wel­come him or any oth­er per­son to do so. The UNC fol­lows de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples, and we en­cour­age any mem­ber who has an in­ter­est to serve to come for­ward and throw their hat in the ring.

“Kevin is a friend and I have tremen­dous re­spect for him. As such, I’d wish him all the best in all of his en­deav­ours. Ul­ti­mate­ly the choice of can­di­date for any seat rests with UNC’s screen­ing com­mit­tee. I have full con­fi­dence they’ll choose the best can­di­date for the job. The com­mit­tee will have my full sup­port for whomev­er they choose for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la. The main goal is to re­move the most de­struc­tive, dra­con­ian PNM Gov­ern­ment in T&T’s his­to­ry.”