And she’s fired again.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Tues­day sacked Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald for yet an­oth­er time in as many days—this time from the post of deputy leader of the rul­ing PNM.

And all Mc­Don­ald re­mains with now, is her po­si­tion as PNM’s Port-of-Spain South rep­re­sen­ta­tive, a po­si­tion to which con­stituents elect­ed her on No­vem­ber 5, 2007 and again on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015.

Row­ley took to Face­book to an­nounce his de­ci­sion.

“I have to­day re­voked the ap­point­ment of Ms Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.” Late Sun­day, he ad­vised the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent to re­voke Mc­Don­ald’s ap­point­ment as the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The move fol­lowed last Sun­day’s ac­tion by po­lice to charge Mc­Don­ald for sev­en of­fences, re­gard­ing al­leged mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud the state and mon­ey laun­der­ing. Four oth­er men were placed on a to­tal of 49 charges al­so, in­clud­ing Mc­Don­ald’s long-time com­pan­ion Michael Carew.

Im­me­di­ate­ly as po­lice moved to charge Mc­Don­ald, Gov­ern­ment an­nounced that her post as Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter was be­ing re­voked via a state­ment from the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­istry.

How­ev­er, the re­place­ment an­nounced by the PM’s of­fice—at­tor­ney and PNM sen­a­tor Garvin Si­mon­ette—de­clined just be­fore he was sworn in, due to the dis­clo­sure of a 2014 dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence charge in the US. He al­so re­signed as a PNM sen­a­tor.

Row­ley’s re­moval of Mc­Don­ald from PNM’s deputy lead­er­ship will re­quire fill­ing the va­can­cy left.

Apart from Mc­Don­ald, oth­er deputies are Joan Yuille-Williams, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan and PNM To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Kelvin Charles.

Row­ley cut Mc­Don­ald out of the lead­er­ship ahead of tonight’s PNM screen­ing team meet­ing to as­sess Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment nom­i­nees.

Row­ley, PNM deputies and ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers com­prise the screen­ing team.

PNM of­fi­cials said the par­ty can’t re­move Mc­Don­ald from the Port-of-Spain South seat as she was elect­ed by con­stituents.

There was spec­u­la­tion the par­ty will be gaug­ing the area’s “tem­per­a­ture” to­mor­row when Row­ley speaks at a pub­lic meet­ing at City Hall, Port-of-Spain en­ti­tled “Let’s Talk Port of Spain—Path To Progress”.

Row­ley is ex­pect­ed to re­spond to Mc­Don­ald and sub­se­quent is­sues.

Be­fore she was charged, he said he had to await the out­come of in­ves­ti­ga­tions. He lat­er said he was pre­pared to act once de­ci­sions were made. But he has not spo­ken pub­licly since.

Se­nior PN­Mites said Row­ley was go­ing to the peo­ple “...Since he’s had two sig­nif­i­cant ‘lash­es’ - Mc­Don­ald and the failed Si­mon­ette ap­point­ment- so he’s go­ing to face things.”

One PNM MP added, “De­vel­op­ments (with Mc­Don­ald) took every­body by sur­prise, peo­ple are ‘feel­ing’ the sit­u­a­tion. That the par­ty’s been af­fect­ed is a re­al­i­ty, but not to the ex­tent that some say or some want. Some have had sym­pa­thy for Mar­lene and that’s helped.”

Af­ter Mc­Don­ald was charged, PNM Port-of-Spain South of­fi­cials said on Tues­day they did not want to com­ment.

But one of Mc­Don­ald’s strongest sup­port­ers in her con­stituen­cy told Guardian Me­dia, “We can un­der­stand her be­ing re­moved as min­is­ter and deputy PNM leader. But I don’t think she’ll give up the seat. She’s a fight­er, she bat­tles for her con­stituents and she’ll fight (charges) to the end al­so. If they choose to se­lect some­one else for 2020 is up to them but it doesn’t make sense for us to re­move an MP now with elec­tions so close.”

Par­ty of­fi­cials not­ed PNM MPs Er­ic Williams and Franklin Khan did not step down from con­stituen­cies when they had court is­sues.

They not­ed ex-UNC MP Jack Warn­er did so from Ch­agua­nas West in 2013 af­ter a neg­a­tive Con­ca­caf re­port against him. But he fought a by-elec­tion with his ILP par­ty and re­took the seat.

Par­lia­ment of­fi­cials said no by-elec­tion can take place for a seat af­ter Sep­tem­ber 23—the fourth an­niver­sary of the con­ven­ing of the cur­rent Par­lia­ment—since by-elec­tions can­not be held in the last year of a term.

PNM of­fi­cials said once Mc­Don­ald doesn’t step down as MP, she’ll be shift­ed (back) to the last seat on Gov­ern­ment’s Par­lia­ment back­bench. She had oc­cu­pied that seat when she was fired from Pub­lic Util­i­ties in 2017. She was shift­ed up the back­bench when she was ap­point­ed to Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2018. The last seat is cur­rent­ly oc­cu­pied by PNM’s Max­ie Cuffie, Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary.

MAR­LENE’S FIR­INGS

•Re­moved from Hous­ing Min­istry in 2016 af­ter she au­tho­rised an HDC house to her com­pan­ion Michael Carew.

•Re­hired as Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter in June 2017; fired three days lat­er in Ju­ly 2017, af­ter invit­ing a re­put­ed gang leader to her swear­ing-in at Pres­i­dent’s House.

• Re­hired as ju­nior Min­is­ter in Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion/Com­mu­ni­ca­tion March 2018, made full Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter but lost Com­mu­ni­ca­tion to Stu­art Young in June 2018 dur­ing a reshuf­fle.

• Re­moved from Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion on Au­gust 12, 2019.

• Re­moved from PNM deputy lead­er­ship a day lat­er.