Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Since the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was with­out a po­lit­i­cal leader, PNM chair­man Con­rad Enill says the PNM's lead­er­ship would make a col­lec­tive de­ci­sion to choose its sen­a­tors. "I think that that nor­mal­ly is the realm of the po­lit­i­cal leader and there­fore since there is no po­lit­i­cal leader at this point in time, it would be the par­ty's lead­er­ship...I think it will be the par­ty's lead­er­ship. Let me leave it at that," Enill said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Enill was re­spond­ing to ques­tions about who will be se­lect­ing the PNM's six Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors. The Con­sti­tu­tion states that these sen­a­tors will be ap­point­ed by the pres­i­dent act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader. Enill said no let­ter was draft­ed to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to ap­point Row­ley Op­po­si­tion Leader. "That is be­ing worked on," he said. Ac­cord­ing to Enill, se­nior PNM of­fi­cials such as its four deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers–Orville Lon­don, Joan Yuille-Williams, Nafeesa Mo­hammed and Dr Lenny Saith–should be among those meet­ing over the week­end to dis­cuss sen­a­to­r­i­al ap­point­ment.

"I would imag­ine over the next 24 hours (we would meet to dis­cuss ap­point­ments to the Sen­ate)," Enill said. Enill said it would be pre­ma­ture to re­veal the names of those tout­ed fors sen­a­to­r­i­al po­si­tions. But sources said among those be­ing con­sid­ered for the posts in­clud­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go's High Com­mis­sion­er to Cana­da, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is; for­mer Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Fitzger­ald Hinds; for­mer Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and at­tor­ney Faris Al-Rawi, who is the son of for­mer San Fer­nan­do West MP Di­ane Seuk­er­an.