Akash Sama­roo

An an­nounce­ment about the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) re­cent­ly can­celled in­ter­nal elec­tions is ex­pect­ed to be made to­mor­row.

One week ago, there was a sud­den an­nounce­ment that the par­ty’s 51st An­nu­al Con­ven­tion and the in­ter­nal elec­tion, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for No­vem­ber 17, had been can­celled. No ex­pla­na­tion was giv­en for the can­cel­la­tion.

On the day of the an­nounce­ment, PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings evad­ed ques­tions about the can­cel­la­tion and would on­ly say that his an­nounce­ment was suf­fi­cient.

How­ev­er, as he made his way in­to the Red House yes­ter­day the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP of­fered a bit more.

“The Gen­er­al Coun­cil meets on Sat­ur­day, any fur­ther com­ments will come af­ter that,” he said.

Cum­mings was asked if he could give a com­mit­ment that the elec­tion will be held soon but he in­stead fo­cused on the an­nu­al con­ven­tion.

“The PNM al­ways has con­ven­tions, the par­tic­u­lar one we had a de­ci­sion was tak­en on that, but we will speak af­ter Gen­er­al Coun­cil,” he said as he made his way on­to the Red House’s com­pound.

The can­cel­la­tion of the par­ty’s in­ter­nal has fu­elled spec­u­la­tion about an ear­ly gen­er­al elec­tion.

At the PNM’s La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro 10th Con­stituen­cy Con­fer­ence last month, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley shrugged off Op­po­si­tion spec­u­la­tion about a snap elec­tion and stat­ed that the par­ty’s an­nu­al con­ven­tion had to take place first.

“They were even call­ing the elec­tion in No­vem­ber, well No­vem­ber we will have the con­fer­ence, that is the pos­si­ble date for the con­fer­ence, so not elec­tions,” he had said then.

Spec­u­la­tion about who will re­place Row­ley as PNM leader was fur­ther fu­elled when he wrapped up his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate by say­ing: “I don’t know how much longer I would have in this Par­lia­ment but I have done my du­ty and I kept the course. I have run the race and I look for­ward, not for a pot of gold but for my fam­i­ly at the end of this rain­bow.”

Sev­er­al names have been thrown out as po­ten­tial can­di­dates in the lead­er­ship race, in­clud­ing Stu­art Young, SC, Pene­lope Beck­les, Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne and Fos­ter Cum­mings.