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Monday, February 24, 2025

UNC to resume screening on Friday; expected to name more candidates

by

Jesse Ramdeo
33 days ago
20250122
UNC political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar speaks to Guardian Media's Jesse Ramdeo outside a party event.

UNC political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar speaks to Guardian Media's Jesse Ramdeo outside a party event.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is set to re­sume its screen­ing ex­er­cise on Fri­day, as well as dis­close the can­di­dates who have been pre­vi­ous­ly ex­am­ined.

How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, a se­nior par­ty of­fi­cial was un­able to con­firm which seats will be screened.

Among the an­tic­i­pat­ed an­nounce­ments is the can­di­date for the St Au­gus­tine con­stituen­cy, cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Khadi­jah Ameen.

On De­cem­ber 12, the UNC screened can­di­dates for the seats of Ari­ma, Trinci­ty/Mal­oney, D’Abadie/O’Meara, Arou­ca/Lopinot, and St Au­gus­tine. The par­ty has since on­ly named the can­di­dates for Arou­ca/Lopinot and Trinci­ty/Mal­oney.

There has been spec­u­la­tion that for­mer MPs Prakash Ra­mad­har and Vas­ant Bharath could be mak­ing a re­turn, as par­ty of­fi­cials re­mained tight-lipped about whether Ameen was un­op­posed when screened. How­ev­er, Ra­mad­har told Guardian me­dia he had not been ap­proached and was fo­cused on re­build­ing the CoP.

“I’m in the process of re­set­ting my par­ty, and we will dis­cuss the is­sue of seat and al­lo­ca­tion when I think the CoP is stand­ing on its own strength. When we have cred­i­ble strength, then we shall dis­cuss ne­go­ti­a­tions with our col­leagues,” he said.

A par­ty can in­vite fur­ther nom­i­na­tions if it is seen as nec­es­sary. Mean­while, Bharath, who pub­licly sig­nalled his in­ter­est in re­turn­ing to rep­re­sen­ta­tive pol­i­tics, said if called up­on, he was ready to serve.

He said, “As you know, the UNC’s nom­i­na­tion process is closed off, and it has been a long time since those nom­i­na­tions have been closed off, so it is on­ly if the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tives de­ter­mines they would like to re­open nom­i­na­tions in any of the con­stituen­cies, on­ly then it will be ap­plic­a­ble to of­fer my­self.”

When con­tact­ed, in­cum­bent MP Ameen said that a de­lay in de­clar­ing a seat was not an anom­aly.

“There is noth­ing un­usu­al, there are oth­er seats screened on the same day that have not been de­clared, so there is noth­ing un­usu­al,” she said.


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