Cur­tis Williams

cur­tis.williams@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Ex­ec­u­tive of the La Brea con­stituen­cy has vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly to en­dorse for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte as its choice to con­test the seat in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Guardian Me­dia has learnt that the vote was 20 for Le Hunte and 2 for the in­cum­bent Nicole Oliv­erre. This fol­lowed a 16 to 3 mar­gin for Le Hunte when the par­ty groups vot­ed Thurs­day.

Oliv­erre who has been the MP in the area for the last five years has not been pop­u­lar among PNM sup­port­ers and it was sur­pris­ing she of­fered her­self up for re-elec­tion.

It means that Le Hunte has the back­ing of the par­ty groups in the PNM strong­hold and po­ten­tial­ly sets up a col­li­sion course with Prime Min­is­ter and Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PNM Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Sev­er­al Cab­i­net sources told GML that Row­ley was adamant on Thurs­day that he did not want to hear any­thing about Le Hunte in­sist­ing that the in­ci­dent that led to Le Hunte's res­ig­na­tion is not an iso­lat­ed one.

Le Hunte quit the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion af­ter a heat­ed Cab­i­net meet­ing last week Thurs­day in which re­ports are he went toe to toe with Row­ley over a Cab­i­net note. He al­so al­leged­ly fell out with em­bat­tled Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

Le Hunte was brought in­to the Cab­i­net by Row­ley and was wide­ly seen by the pri­vate sec­tor as a Min­is­ter who could be ap­proached to deal with the chal­lenges they faced.

He is the par­ty's Vice Chair­man and up­on his res­ig­na­tion he in­sist­ed that he re­mained loy­al to the PNM.

Since his res­ig­na­tion the Prime Min­is­ter has been silent on the is­sue as he has been on the con­tro­ver­sy swirling around his Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and the calls for Young to re­sign.

Un­der the PNM con­sti­tu­tion the po­lit­i­cal leader no longer has the pow­er to ve­to the rec­om­men­da­tions of the screen­ing com­mit­tee.

Row­ley was him­self a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of this change when the late Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had to abide by the ma­jor­i­ty of the par­ty's na­tion­al screen­ing com­mit­tee in the run-up to the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

At that time Man­ning had ob­ject­ed to Row­ley con­test­ing the Diego Mar­tin West seat for the PNM.