More than 200 want to contest for UNC in local govt
THE United National Congress (UNC) has not yet started screening members for the upcoming local elections, but has already received 200 nominations for potential candidates, deputy political leader Rupert Griffith said on Thursday.
And the party is confident it will win the local government elections although the People’s National Movement (PNM) has already begun its screening.
UNC deputy political leader Suruj Rambachan said the UNC and coalition partner Congress of the People (COP) will unite to contest the election.
The party’s deputy leaders were speaking with reporters after a UNC national executive meeting at Rienzi Complex, Couva, on Thursday night.
Rambachan said, “We are going to go into elections as a partnership, and the COP and the UNC will in fact work out our mutual interests and the division of the seats and how we are going to contest. There is nothing else that will happen, except that we will fight like we did in 2010 as a partnership.”
He said, “We intend to retain all the seats we have at this point in time, both as the UNC and as the COP, and we are actively going after the Port of Spain City Corporation, Point Fortin and San Juan/Laventille.”
The party’s interim chairman, Khadijah Ameen said, “I am confident that the UNC is strong. We have a strong membership. Our membership would have been mobilised several times in the recent past. Up to very recently, we have had new executives being installed and elected in constituencies throughout Trinidad and that is a sign that the party is strong and the party will continue to be strong and serve its members.”
Rambachan also said Port of Spain Mayor Louis Lee Singh was “running scared” because his performance was not as high as the heads of other regional corporations. He said, “ I notice the Mayor of Port of Spain is complaining that we are withholding funds from the city corporation. I want to say that has no truth on it at all it is baseless. I think what is happening to the Mayor of Port of Spain is that he is running scared.”
Rambachan said, “The Mayor has not delivered to the burgesses as he should have delivered over the last two and a half years, and suddenly he finds himself in a predicament where people are comparing his performance to the performance of the other regional corporations.”
Ameen said, “The partnership’s performance will speak for itself in the upcoming elections.”