Smooth Nomination Day

“All 137 candidates filed their papers before noon. There was no problem,” Ford said. He also said there were no problems as well in submitting the names of the ruling party’s 137 nominees for aldermen at the EBC’s headquarters in Port-of-Spain yesterday either. He said all of the PNM’s candidates are “very excited” and determined to bring the election home for the party. “We are on the road,” Ford declared.

The PNM’s election bandwagon will be at Market Square in Point Fortin tomorrow and then at Charlie King Junction, Fyzabad on Friday. Both meetings start at 7 pm with Prime Minister and PNM political leader Dr Keith Rowley being the feature speaker. Ford was confident the PNM would retain control of the Port-of-Spain City, San Fernando City, Diego Martin Regional, San Juan/Laventille Regional, Tunapuna/Piarco Regional, Arima Borough and Sangre Grande Corporations which it won in the 2013 local government election.

On the other side of the political divide, UNC chairman David Lee said everything “went well” for the party in filing its nominations across Trinidad as well as nominations for aldermen at the EBC’s head office in Port-of-Spain. Like the PNM, Lee said the UNC ensured that all its candidates were early in completing their exercises.

He said all its candidates and nominees for aldermen would have been presented last night at the party’s public meeting at Montrose Junction, Chaguanas. Opposition Leader and UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar was expected to deliver the keynote address at that meeting.

Apart from retaining its six local government corporations (Princes Town, Penal/Debe, Chaguanas, Rio Claro/Mayaro, Siparia and Couva/ Tabaquite/Talparo), Lee said the UNC was “very, very confident” of wresting the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation away from the PNM. Lee said he accompanied Persad-Bissessar to Sangre Grande on Sunday and the party is “heartened” by the response it got from residents to her visit. In addition, Lee said the UNC’s candidates have been doing a lot of work on the ground in the area as well.

He scoffed at a claim from the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) that the UNC stole its slogan of “send them a message”. Lee countered that other parties contesting the November 28 polls are basically “the PNM B team.” He said the only possible role these parties could play is to split votes in favour of the PNM. COP general secretary Clyde Weatherhead rejected Lee’s claim that the COP would not make a difference in the November 28 elections. “Nobody owns anybody’s vote,” Weatherhead said.

Saying the party’s candidates had no problems filing its nominations, Weatherhead said the COP is offering the electorate a blend of youth and experience with its candidates.

“This election is about good local government representation,” he said. MSJ political leader David Abdulah said Lee’s comment about other parties in the race being part of a “PNM B team” was “a total joke.” Abdulah said the MSJ had chosen the districts it will contest very strategically and November 28 will show who the joke is on.

The party is contesting districts in the Arima, Tunapuna/Piarco and Point Fortin Corporations.

ILP leader Rekha Ramjit said her party’s eight candidates filed their nominations for the UNC-controlled Chaguanas Borough Corporation “without a hitch” yesterday.

Declaring that the battle for control of this corporation will be “a three-way fight” between the ILP, PNM and UNC, Ramjit said she was confident her party will have “the same chance.” The ILP is only focusing its efforts on this corporation. Contacted yesterday, EBC officials said “up to this point the process has been generally smooth.” HUGS, PICONG IN T’PUNA It was a case of hug-up and picong as Deputy Speaker Esmond Forde bounced up a grinning former Speaker and Opposition Senator Wade Mark at the Tunapuna Piarco Regional Corporation (TPRC) office yesterday, each backing their party’s nominees for the upcoming local government election, respectively People’s National Movement (PNM) and United National Congress (UNC).

“You ain’t get my permission to come in Tunapuna,” MP Forde (Tunapuna) teasingly told Mark, while Opposition Senator Khadijah Ameen looked on bemused.

PNM candidate for Caura/Paradise/ Tacarigua, Aaron Thomas, 28, said it had been a smooth process, as he keenly sought a second term to continue to work with Forde to improve the area. He saw his major achievements as a bridge built in Caura, painting public housing units, upgrading children’s play parks in La Goya, Peasetree, Paradise and El Dorado Gardens, setting up a jobs database, and emailing residents a schedule of garbage collection.

Forde hailed Thomas as “the young blood” called for by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley. Mark and Ameen (and former TPRC vice-chairman Roseanna Sookhoo) backed UNC candidates, financial adviser J-Lynn Roopnarine, for Curepe/Pasea and homemaker/activist Mary Mohammed- Moti, for Macoya/Trincity.

Ameen said, “All is well so far.

No major hiccups.” She said most of the party’s 137 candidates nationwide had filed nominations before 10 am, by simply following the process set out when they had previously met their respective returning officers for a dry run. She added, “I see interest from people who don’t usually participate in local Government elections. It is a chance to send a message to the Government.” She said people want roads fixed and garbage collected and a reachable councillor. Ameen said local government is not about “reform” but about people. “It is not the letter of the law but the spirit and the political will.” SMOOTH DAY IN SANDO In the southland, Nomination Day went smoothly as Local Government candidates filed their papers.

UNC chairman Lee boldly predicted that the Opposition party would win the keenly contested Sangre Grande Regional Corporation (SGRC) as well as make inroads in the PNM controlled San Fernando City and Diego Martin Regional Corporations.

“We are confident to hold our six (regional corporations) and I’m very confident we will win Sangre Grande, very confident that we will make some inroads in the San Fernando Corporation, we hold one district presently, I predict we will get four in total, hoping for five and we will make inroads in the Tunapuna Corporation, the San Juan Barataria Corporation and I predict that we will make an inroad into the Diego Martin Corporation and we will hold aldermen in that corporation,” said a confident Lee.

Asked whether he was worried the smaller parties, he said: “we are not because we have been doing our ground work and our voters are aware of what the third party can do and we have seen it in the last Local Government election in 2013 where the ILP did split some of our votes and so our voters are a lot more wiser and it’s about a twoway fight between the PNM and the UNC.” Lee, the Pointe-a-Pierre MP, described the nomination process as smooth with the party expected to have presented its 137 candidates at a public meeting at Chaguanas last evening.