Five of the 23 persons nominated by party groups will go forward to contest to be the PNCR’s presidential candidate, who should be known by a Special Congress on February 26, the party yesterday revealed.
They five in the race are current Vice-Chairman Basil Williams, former minister Dr Faith Harding, retired army Brigadier David Granger, former Caricom economist Carl Greenidge and attorney James Bond. The party’s disclosure was the first known mention of Bond, who had been a supporter in the late Winston Murray’s camp.
Party Chairman Bishwaishwar ‘Cammie’ Ramsaroop had also been nominated and approved by the leadership but later declined.
At its weekly news briefing yesterday, PNCR General Secretary Oscar Clarke said the Presidential Candidate Process Committee had received responses from nine nominees by the January 3 deadline by which they had to provide their acceptance, résumé and bio data. “Six of the nine nominees had so responded and the committee proceeded to evaluate those responses. They were all found to be in order in every material particular and as a consequence were recommended to the Central Executive Committee as being suitable candidates,” he said.
The CEC, he said, met on Wednesday and received the committee’s report and approved the recommendations. It was following this that Ramsaroop withdrew from the race. There were other nominees who submitted their documents after January 3, Clarke said, but they were not considered since their submissions were after the deadline. The announcement of the approved nominees was to be done by December 30 but was later extended at the request of two of them, who had sought more time to get their documentation together while the Special Congress had been originally slated to be held by February 19.
The next stage in the process is party-sponsored town hall-style meetings, where the nominees will be travelling and meeting the public. “The candidates themselves will be out and about at the behest of the party. We’re going to be having a meeting with these candidates next Wednesday evening … they’re gonna be signing on to a code of behaviour which we would expect them to uphold during the period between now and the Congress,” Clarke said.
