Ramsaran wants to fight Chaguanas West as consensus PP candidate

Two former CWC MPs - Manohar Ramsaran and Jack Warner. 

Media reports say Manohar Ramsaran would contest the Chaguanas seat in the upcoming by-election if the People's Partnership nominates him as a consensus candidate.

The vacancy arose when Jack Warner resigned, following his departure from cabinet and his resignation as chairman of the United National Congress (UNC).

Ramsaran was the MP for Chaguanas (which later became Chaguanas West) from 1995 to 2007, having been elected in the 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2002 elections as the UNC candidate. However he left the UNC and joined the Congress of the People (COP for the 2007 election and lost to UNC's Jack Warner.

Warner retained the seat for the UNC in 2010, winning the highest number of votes for any constituency in the country.

When he resigned, he said he wants to seek re-election as a UNC candidate, declaring that he is "UNC to the bone". However the party has not started its screening and there is no word on whether Warner would get the nomination.

UNC Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced two weeks ago that every member of her party is entitled to seek the nomination for CWC and also for the Local Government Election that is due later this year.

If the UNC decides that it will continue to keep the seat, then Ramsaran won't qualify to seek nomination unless COP decides to put a candidate of its own and selects Ramsaran to represent the party. One option is for the People's Partnership to collectively agree on a candidate.

Ramsaran told local media people in the constituency have asked him to run and suggested that the partnership should consider a single candidate. 

“If there’s consensus and I have a chance I will not mind accepting. I represented that seat for 12 years and I believe I performed well. People may have forgotten but my legacy was not box drains and pavements but schools and such achievements,” he said. Ramsaran said he campaigned for Warner in 2010.