Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter 

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

A back-and-forth over the fu­ture lead­er­ship of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) found its way to the Up­per House yes­ter­day, with the Op­po­si­tion call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ex­plain its suc­ces­sion plan­ning to the pub­lic. It be­gan when Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Ran­dall Mitchell re­spond­ed to Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark’s as­ser­tion on Mon­day af­ter­noon that there is bac­cha­nal in the Bal­isi­er and that a “house di­vid­ed” can­not stand.

Mitchell told the Op­po­si­tion to mind their busi­ness.

“Cock­roach have no place in fowl busi­ness,” Mitchell de­clared to tu­mul­tuous sup­port from his Gov­ern­ment col­leagues.

Mitchell said it was iron­ic that Mark would speak about di­vi­sion when in the Low­er House, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has five MPs who have been ex­iled from the par­ty.

How­ev­er, Sen­a­tor Jear­lean John re­mind­ed Mitchell that the PNM’s busi­ness is the peo­ple’s busi­ness. “This is not any cock­roach in fowl busi­ness or fowl in cock­roach busi­ness, you know; this is our busi­ness be­cause the peo­ple who are talk­ing are mem­bers of the PNM, who are mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment, so this is our busi­ness,” she ar­gued.

John said she was mere­ly echo­ing ques­tions that the PNM’s own gen­er­al sec­re­tary has for his po­lit­i­cal leader.

“So I have to ask this morn­ing, who is your leader? We know who is our leader. You can say what you want about her, but we know,” John said as the Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors thumped their desks in ap­proval.

“The last time I checked, T&T is a democ­ra­cy, and you can’t hand over the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter as if you are the queen.”

John said when the UNC had its in­ter­nal elec­tions con­tro­ver­sy, PNM mem­bers jeered at them, which forced some to com­mit what she de­scribed as “po­lit­i­cal sui­cide.”

She al­so said it was in­ter­est­ing that a par­ty known for be­ing tight-lipped on its in­ter­nal af­fairs is now break­ing that tra­di­tion. John strong­ly be­lieves it has to do with a re­sis­tance to Stu­art Young, whom she de­scribed as be­long­ing to the “elite” class.

“I think they are say­ing in the pa­pers that they are try­ing to keep out a cer­tain per­son. There’s a lev­el of dis­so­nance and anger be­cause peo­ple are re­sis­tant to this ready-made suc­ces­sor. Ready-made!

“The PNM is be­hav­ing like this is a two-piece and fries,” she said to the Op­po­si­tion’s amuse­ment.

“All the time they had noth­ing to say, but to­day every one of them talk­ing out, they are climb­ing over each oth­er, fight­ing each oth­er to get in­to the me­dia to put their busi­ness out in the road,” she added.

But in his maid­en con­tri­bu­tion to a Sen­ate de­bate, new­ly mint­ed Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor An­cil Den­nis proud­ly de­clared there is no con­fu­sion over who is in charge of the PNM.

“We know clear­ly who is our leader, who is our Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley! More im­por­tant­ly, you have to know the at­trib­ut­es of your leader. Our leader is a man of in­tegri­ty, char­ac­ter, and an im­pec­ca­ble track record in the pol­i­tics of Trinidad and To­ba­go. A man who has demon­strat­ed courage and, of course, a man who has been sober at all times,” Den­nis said.

Den­nis sought to as­sure the pub­lic that there is no bac­cha­nal in the PNM or the Gov­ern­ment.

On Mon­day, the Prime Min­is­ter ap­point­ed Young to act as Prime Min­is­ter for the third time, even af­ter Young was ad­mon­ished by the House Speak­er for his con­duct in the Low­er House and was forced to apol­o­gise.

Sev­er­al names are spec­u­lat­ed to be po­ten­tial suc­ces­sors to Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in­clud­ing Young, Fos­ter Cum­mings, Amery Browne and Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. There are ru­mours that there is in­ter­nal dis­cord over what some see as Dr Row­ley’s at­tempt to po­si­tion Young as the on­ly con­tender for that po­si­tion. Elec­tions for the po­lit­i­cal leader post are due in 2026.