Former RBTT banker on PNM ticket
Stanford Callender...out of the race.
by EARL MANMOHAN, Tobago News
PNM Tobago West MP Stanford Callender is bowing out of
representative politics. Read more….
PNM Tobago West MP Stanford Callender is bowing out of
representative politics. He did not sign the consent form to
be nominated for the seat when nominations closed on Tuesday
at Balisier House, Port of Spain. Callender has held for the
PNM since 2000.
Former RBTT Tobago Manager, 43-year-old Terrence Williams has
been nominated unopposed by the party groups in the
constituency to replace Callender who is currently Minister in
the Office of the Prime Minister for Tobago Affairs.
Tobago-born Williams is from Canaan/Bon Accord.
Current holder of the Tobago East seat Rennie Dumas, the
Minister of Labour and Small and Micro Enterprise Development
was also nominated unopposed to contest the coming general
elections. Both nominees are to be screened next week. In
October 2007 Political Leader and Prime Minister Patrick
Manning had travelled to Baliser House in Scarborough for the
screening of the Tobago nominees.
Callender, 58, started representative politics when he
successfully fought the Tobago County Council elections in
1977.
He served as an Assemblyman in the Tobago House of Assembly
from 1980 to 1984 and appointed a PNM Senator in 1991.
Callender fought the 2000 general elections and beat former
Pan Trinbago president Patrick Arnold to begin his ten-year
hold on the Tobago West seat for the PNM.
In the elections of 2001, 2002 and 2007 he beat opposition
politicians like Hochoy “Heavy Roller” Charles and Stanley
Beard.
Callender told the Tobago News in a telephone interview on
Wednesday that he had decided some time ago to bow out of
representative politics and this would be his last term.
However, he said, while he was retiring from this aspect of
the politics he was certainly not getting out of the politics.
Callender has been composer and singer of PNM Tobago election
campaign songs from the general election of 2001.
He said he wished to thank the party and his constituents for
their unbridled support over the years. “They have been good
to me given the scope of my representation,” he said.
Callender said he was handing over to a young and energetic
young man with full confidence that he will make a good
representative. Up to press time on Wednesday Williams could
not be reached for a comment.