Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce a re­place­ment in the Sen­ate to­day for Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Hafeez Ali, who re­signed his post last Fri­day, PNM of­fi­cials have con­firmed.

This oc­curred fol­low­ing a con­tro­ver­sial so­cial me­dia video of a re­port­ed­ly sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it na­ture which emerged as part of a black­mail/ex­tor­tion plot re­cent­ly.

Word of Ali's res­ig­na­tion was con­firmed yes­ter­day by a num­ber of high­ly placed gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the rul­ing PNM ex­ec­u­tive.

Leader of the Gov­ern­ment's Sen­ate busi­ness Franklin Khan didn't re­spond to phone calls, emails or texted queries on the mat­ter yes­ter­day.

Al­so con­tact­ed, Ali de­clined com­ment.

But sources close to Ali con­firmed that he re­signed last Fri­day af­ter he re­port­ed the is­sue of the on­line video to the Fraud Squad as a case of al­leged ex­tor­tion/black­mail. They told the T&T Guardian that he was the sub­ject of an al­leged ex­tor­tion at­tempt by a per­son, hence the leak­ing of the video. The video has since been mak­ing the rounds, in­clud­ing in op­po­si­tion and gov­ern­ment cir­cles.

Ali re­port­ed­ly stepped down over fears that a com­bi­na­tion of his pub­lic of­fice and the furore which would de­vel­op when the in­for­ma­tion hit main­stream me­dia would re­sult in a back­lash for his fam­i­ly.

A spokesman yes­ter­day con­firmed Ali re­signed of his own vo­li­tion last Fri­day af­ter the video is­sue emerged last week and he "wasn't fired." It was al­so con­firmed he'd had talks with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, which pre­ced­ed the res­ig­na­tion.

An­oth­er of­fi­cial said the mat­ter had reached the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate and ex­plained that once there, he'd have had to do what was "ex­pect­ed" (re­sign).

Row­ley was in To­ba­go yes­ter­day and was un­avail­able to speak on the mat­ter. The PM will be ad­dress­ing a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing in St Joseph tonight.

Ali is list­ed by the PNM's web­sites as a busi­ness­man, con­trac­tor and a pi­lot. It al­so states that Ali, 43, joined the par­ty in 2003 and served over that time un­til 2006 as trea­sur­er of the Barataria/San Juan con­stituen­cy. He was al­so op­er­a­tions man­ag­er for the 2007 and 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paigns in that seat.

He was se­lect­ed last year by the PNM's screen­ing com­mit­tee head­ed by Row­ley for the Barataria-San Juan seat in the Sep­tem­ber 7 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign.

More than one gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial yes­ter­day con­firmed that Ali's re­place­ment may not be PNM deputy leader Ro­han Sinanan (who was ini­tial­ly tipped to re­place him ear­ly yes­ter­day), since Sinanan is al­ready act­ing in the Sen­ate for Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus. They said an an­nounce­ment to re­voke his ap­point­ment is ex­pect­ed to be made soon.

Ali, who is from Don Miguel Road, San Juan, lost to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in­cum­bent Dr Fuad Khan, though their fight had made that seat one of two of the tough­est-fought con­stituen­cies in that elec­tion. Khan held on to the seat with 8,722 votes, on­ly 540 more than Ali. The oth­er close­ly fought con­stituen­cy was Moru­ga/Table­land, won by the PNM.

Ali was one of sev­er­al un­suc­cess­ful PNM can­di­dates who were giv­en Par­lia­ment po­si­tions; among them Clarence Ramb­harat (now Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter), Avinash Singh (par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary-Agri­cul­ture) and Sarah Bud­hu (a sen­a­tor).

Fol­low­ing his gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat, Ali was ap­point­ed a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor on Sep­tem­ber 23, 2015, at the start of the 11th Par­lia­ment, sit­ting half-way down the Gov­ern­ment front bench.

His maid­en con­tri­bu­tion was to the 2016 bud­get de­bate in Oc­to­ber 2015.

Ali is al­so list­ed on the PNM's site as a teacher and prin­ci­pal at Nur E Is­lam mosque for the pe­ri­od 1999 to 2002 and boasts a sport­ing back­ground with rel­a­tives in the field such as Fazeer Mo­hammed, a pop­u­lar re­gion­al crick­et com­men­ta­tor and talk show host, and Tam­jeed Ali.