Winston fights Tunapuna; Prakash gets St Augustine

Winston Dookeran is going to fight the Tunapuna seat in the May 24 general election, according to media reports and reliable political sources.

The leader of the Congress of the People was the party's candidate in St Augustine in the 2007 general election but was defeated by Vasant Bharath of the UNC Alliance. Dookeran had won the seat in the 2002 election as a UNC candidate.

In 2007 this is what happened: UNCA: 7,043; COP 6,426; PNM 4,039.

St Augustine has always been one of the safest opposition seats. The only time it was ever held by the PNM was in the no vote election of 1971 when the PNM won all 36 seats in the country.

Tunapuna, on the other has been a marginal seat and has changed hands between the PNM and the UNC or several occasions.

Education Minister Esther Le Gendre won it in 2007 and will be the PNM candidate there again in 2010.

The breakdown of the 2007 votes was: PNM-8,468; COP-4,004; UNCA-3,823. Eddie Hart had won the seat for the PNM in 2002 with 10,214 but the party lost some support when it dumped Hart, with the margin of victory narrowing to 641 votes.

The COP is convinced that with Dookeran as its candidate it can win the seat easlily since there will be no other opposition party to split the vote.

Party sources say COP Deputy Political Leader Prakesh Ramadhar will contest the St Augustine seat, which the UNC gave up to COP as part of the unity deal.

Ramadhar ran in Caroni central in the 2007 election and was defeated by Dr Hamza Rafeeq of the UNCA.

Another COP deputy will contest the San Fernando West seat, the sources say. Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan will be running against the PNM’s Junia Regrello who won the seat in with a margin of only 114 votes.

The constituency was held previously by Sadiq Baksh for the UNC, but the party lost it in 2002 to the PNM's Diane Seukeran with 9,091 votes.

Party sources say without the vote splitting Seepersad-Bachan would easily win the seat. The PNM vote had dropped by more than 1,700 votes in 2007 with Regrello winning 7,371 votes to the combined opposition's 7,257.