The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) se­lec­tion of for­mer crick­eter Mervyn Dil­lon to con­test the To­co/San­gre Grande seat in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion is not sit­ting well with sup­port­ers and ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

In fact, it has so in­censed the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive that at least one of its heads, John Ma­son, says he is will­ing to walk away from the par­ty af­ter serv­ing the par­ty for 18 years, while ac­tivist Dar­rel Dookoo has called on the par­ty leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley “to go” af­ter Dil­lon was giv­en the nod over both in­cum­bent Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith and favourite Lor­raine Heath.

Dil­lon was one of six nom­i­nees screened on Thurs­day.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view Fri­day, Ma­son slammed the par­ty for se­lect­ing a can­di­date who has done lit­tle or noth­ing for the PNM. De­scrib­ing Dil­lon as a “John­ny Come Late­ly” to the par­ty, Ma­son said par­ty mem­bers know lit­tle about the for­mer West In­dies crick­eter.

“How can they pick him (Dil­lon) over qual­i­fied and loy­al PNM peo­ple who went be­yond the call for the par­ty?”

Ma­son made it clear he has noth­ing per­son­al against Dil­lon. How­ev­er, he said the PNM was set­ting it­self up to lose the cru­cial seat be­cause of bad judge­ment calls.

“They can’t pos­si­bly want to win this seat by sim­ply putting some­one who has a brand name. They choose him for his pop­u­lar­i­ty. I am very hurt and dis­ap­point­ed,” he said.

He drew ref­er­ence to last De­cem­ber’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, where the PNM lost con­trol of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to the UNC due to the poor choice of two can­di­dates.

“If they stick to this choice they are go­ing to lose. I can­not see how the PNM can win this seat. Them days are gone where you could put any­body up for the PNM and win.

“Things don’t work so no more. It seems to me there is too much pol­i­tics in pol­i­tics. They come back do­ing the same thing ex­pect­ing a dif­fer­ent re­sult. That is mad­ness.”

He said the mes­sage the PNM has been send­ing to its sup­port base was that they do not care.

“How the peo­ple will get de­liv­ery if this per­son nev­er served?”

An­gered by the turn of events, Ma­son who served the PNM for 18 years said, “I am will­ing to walk away from the par­ty I am not go­ing to ac­cept that. You just can’t give me any­thing and do any­thing to me.”

Ma­son called on the screen­ing com­mit­tee and Row­ley to give rea­sons why they chose Dil­lon.

“I can­not ask my peo­ple to sup­port that. We will down our tools and go our way. I will not sup­port Dil­lon or no­body who has not worked in the con­stituen­cy. This could mash up the ex­ec­u­tive. This can al­so give the UNC the edge to win the seat.”

Dookoo al­so said par­ty sup­port­ers were not hap­py with Dil­lon.

“We don’t know the gen­tle­man. If you are go­ing to fight a seat wouldn’t peo­ple know you? PNM peo­ple will not vote for Kam­la. PNM peo­ple will sit on their vote,” Dookoo said.

But he said hav­ing a weak PNM can­di­date will give the UNC the up­per hand at the polls.

“I think the PNM has col­lapsed. There is too much rum­bling in­side.”

He added that Row­ley and his peo­ple “need to move now. They are ex­pired. Their time is fin­ished. If this par­ty is to win an elec­tion you need to se­ri­ous­ly look at the can­di­dates you are putting. If we lose San­gre Grande, PNM will lose the gen­er­al elec­tion.”

Sookoo ad­mit­ted that he felt “an­gry and hurt” by the PNM’s de­ci­sions while he was be­ing treat­ed as a neemakaram (un­grate­ful) in the par­ty which he sup­port­ed for years.

Calls to Dil­lon’s cell­phone went unan­swered.