Former Port-of-Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing will not work with incumbent MP and chosen candidate for Port-of-Spain South, Marlene McDonald. He and former councillor Isha Wells were both blanked by the party’s screening committee on Wednesday. Lee Sing, in an interview yesterday, said the screening process was not fair, as promised by PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley, and was in fact skewed in favour of the incumbent.
“I am still holding my spirit together,” he added. He said it was unfortunate the party and the country was not laying the proper tracks for the “train of greatness” to run. Lee Sing said he and Wells had broken all the unspoken taboos within the PNM with their open challenge of a sitting MP. “That should be very telling that the incumbent is not doing her job well, or perhaps never did that kind of job well,” he said.
Speaking to the media at the screening on Wednesday, Lee Sing did not comment directly on McDonald’s term. He did say then that during his 39 months as mayor, he had invited McDonald to his meetings and she only attended one. “One would have thought that if we were serious about representation, we would have attended the meetings,” he said.
After learning he had not been chosen to replace McDonald, Lee Sing said even the screening process was archaic. He said the panel sat on one side of a room, with representatives from the constituency on the other, and in his allotted time frame he was not allowed to complete his presentation on proposed improvements for the constituency.
Lee Sing said when he was asked during the screening if he thought his public spats with Rowley had played a part in his rejection, he had replied that their disagreements were evidence of their strong individual tendencies. “Remember, Rowley voted against the party and broke party ranks. I would think that taking a page out of Rowley’s book would be a good thing,” he said.
Lee Sing said it was Diego Martin North/East MP Colm Imbert who posed that question.