Elections in the air

The UNC will be at the Brazil Secondary School tonight at 7 pm for the return of its Monday night forum. Prime Minister and UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar will deliver the feature address at tonight’s meeting which is certain to have some bombshells to throw at the PNM and other parties challenging the ruling People’s Partnership (PP) coalition in this year’s elections which are constitutionally due by September 17.

The PP comprises the UNC, COP, Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP) and the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC). The Movement for Social Justice (MSJ), which was a founding member of the PP, left the coalition in June 2012. The forum, the UNC’s first for 2015, takes place in the marginal seat of La Horquetta/Talparo, currently represented in Parliament by Land Affairs Minister Jairam Seemungal.

On Tuesday, the COP holds its first public meeting at the St Augustine Girls’ High School at 7.30 pm. Party leader and St Augustine MP Prakash Ramadhar will be the feature speaker. The meeting comes in the wake of the February 8 Cabinet reshuffle, in which Persad-Bissessar advised President Anthony Carmona to revoke the appointment of COP member Timothy Hamel-Smith as Senate President and the removal of Gary Griffith as National Security Minister. Griffith’s wife, Nicole Dyer-Griffith resigned as COP chairman last month.

On Saturday, Ramadhar maintained that the COP would not leave the PP and remained strong despite the resignation of Dyer-Griffith and other persons from the party.

On Wednesday, it will be the PNM’s turn with a walkabout along the Marabella Train Line followed by a public meeting at the Gopaul’s Hardware car park at 7 pm. Opposition Leader and PNM political leader Dr Keith Rowley will lead the battery of speakers at that meeting.

In providing details about tonight’s meeting in Brazil, Acting UNC chairman Khadijah Ameen disclosed that the chairmen of the four parties which comprise the PP will meet on March 8 at 9 am to begin the process of negotiating the seats which each party will contest in the elections.

Saying the UNC has not selected any candidates for the elections as yet, Ameen explained that one of the things the chairmen would decide upon is a negotiating committee, comprising representatives from each party in the coalition, to determine the allocation of seats. In this regard, Ameen said she was unaware of a request by the COP to contest more than the five seats it currently holds in Parliament (St Augustine, Tunapuna, San Fernando West, Arima and Lopinot Bon Air West). The D’Abadie/O’Meara seat, formerly held by the COP’s Anil Roberts, was declared vacant last August after Roberts resigned as MP and Sports Minister in the wake of the Life Sport scandal.

PP wants to remain in power

Stating the objective of all parties in the coalition is to “prepare the Partnership for a return to government,” Ameen said regardless of how the allocation goes, activists from all of the parties will support the candidate chosen in each constituency. She said resignation of Dyer-Griffith and NJAC’s internal elections had caused the date of the chairmen’s meeting to be rescheduled.

Dismissing reports that Griffith and his wife are talking with other parties to form a new coalition, Ameen was confident the population would re-elect the PP for a second term. Claiming the Independent Liberal Party (ILP), led by former Cabinet minister Jack Warner is “singing in chorus with the PNM,” Ameen said people needed to look at “the bigger picture” rather than be guided by “individual desires, needs and emotions.

Ameen also said new Sports Minister Brent Sancho will make his debut at the UNC’s platform tonight and she will make an appearance at the COP’s meeting tomorrow. COP general secretary Clyde Weatherhead said tomorrow’s meeting is evidence of the party preparing itself for the polls.

NJAC leader Kwasi Mutema said no NJAC representatives will be at the UNC meeting as the party has an important internal meeting of its own tonight.

Mutema also said recent developments in the COP set back the time for the PP chairmen’s meeting. He agreed with Ameen that any coalition which Griffith and his wife were seeking to form “will not reach very far.”

Al-Rawi: Call the election

PNM public relations officer Faris Al-Rawi yesterday declared, “We are fully prepared for an election now.” Saying this week’s UNC and COP meetings show the elections are drawing near, Al-Rawi said the PNM is “way ahead of the game” and should have its full slate of candidates by the end of March. To date, the PNM has selected 26 of its 41 candidates.

Notwithstanding some party members in Arima being upset about former MP Pennelope Beckles-Robinson not being chosen as the PNM’s Arima candidate, Al-Rawi said the concerns are “nowhere like 2010” when the party lost the seat to the COP. Beckles-Robinson was rejected on that occasion by the screening committee, chaired by then PNM leader Patrick Manning.

Saying the party will soon be presenting its plans and policies to the population, Al-Rawi rejected claims by some commentators that “it’s the same old UNC and the same old PNM.” He declared that under Rowley’s leadership “the PNM is very much re-engineered.” Saying House Speaker Wade Mark should resign following the no-confidence motion that was brought against him, Al-Rawi said Government could remedy this situation and other problems under its watch “in one fell swoop” by calling elections now. The PNM continues its screening on March 8 in Tobago for nominees for the Tobago West and Tobago East seats — currently held by the TOP’s Dr Delmon Baker and Vernella Alleyne-Toppin respectively. Opposition Senator Shamfa Cujdoe is amongst the nominees for Tobago West.

Warner said the ILP’s national executive met on Saturday to discuss the selection of candidates and schedule of public activities. Disclosing those discussions continue tomorrow at 6.30 pm, Warner said the possibility of the ILP being part of a new political coalition for the elections remains on the table.

“We are meeting and talking with various persons and organisations but we are keeping our options open,” he added. Warner scoffed at Ramadhar’s claims that the COP remained strong in the wake of the resignations of Dyer-Griffith and other persons from the party. “The COP is politically dead but with UNC money and membership in UNC clothes,” he quipped.

Warner said the COP is “hoping to be given political intravenous fluid and a breath of life.”