Richard Lord

?In a dra­mat­ic day for the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in three con­stituen­cies, chair­man Con­rad Enill yes­ter­day re­ceived a stun­ning jolt in a hard­core bal­isi­er area.

Al­so, loy­al­ists of Ari­ma in­cum­bent Pen­ne­lope Beck­les car­ried out a vi­brant three-hour demon­stra­tion out­side Bal­isi­er House, in­sist­ing that she again faces the polls. In ad­di­tion, To­ba­go East's Ren­nie Du­mas sur­pris­ing­ly with­drew his can­di­da­cy, spark­ing spec­u­la­tion he was eased through the door. More than 100 PNM sup­port­ers, some wav­ing plac­ards and shout­ing ac­cu­sa­tions, yes­ter­day de­mand­ed that Enill not be named as the PNM's St Ann's East can­di­date. The PN­Mites strong­ly ar­gued for the re­ten­tion of in­cum­bent An­tho­ny Roberts as can­di­date for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. Roberts was not in the live­ly group of main­ly fe­male PNM sup­port­ers who demon­strat­ed on his be­half out­side his con­stituen­cy of­fice at Low­er San­ta Cruz. Wear­ing red PNM T-shirts, they chant­ed: "We want Roberts. We want Roberts." They waved plac­ards with slo­gans such as: "No Roberts , no vote", "St Ann's East is not for sale" and "PM, do what is right".

One pro­tes­tor shout­ed: "We don't want no Enill here; no Enill here." Con­stituent Bev­er­ly Is­rael said Roberts was the best rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the elec­toral dis­trict and the protest was aimed at send­ing a mes­sage to Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. She com­mend­ed Man­ning for re­tain­ing Diego Mar­tin West in­cum­bent Dr Kei­th Row­ley and called for him to "con­tin­ue to strength­en the par­ty by mak­ing the right de­ci­sion with re­spect to Mr Roberts." Asked whether the con­stituen­cy would sup­port Enill, she said the PNM chair­man has nev­er had any re­la­tions with the con­stituen­cy al­though he lived in the dis­trict. "Mr Enill has nev­er tak­en the time to as­so­ciate with res­i­dents, so we are say­ing that if the Prime Min­is­ter brings Mr Enill, we don't see our­selves be­ing able to work with the gen­tle­man," Is­rael stressed. She added: "We are able to work with Roberts. We love him and we are will­ing to stand by him.

"If Mr Man­ning does not choose Mr Roberts, St Ann's East re­fus­es to vote for any­one else." Roberts was ban­ished to the back­bench dur­ing the re­cent abort­ed par­lia­men­tary term, af­ter serv­ing as a front­line Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter dur­ing the pre­vi­ous term. He has turned down an of­fer to head a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion. The protest took place on a day when sup­port­ers of Beck­les re­sumed demon­stra­tions out­side Bal­isi­er House. Par­ty ac­tivists Bar­bara Ryan-Cum­ber­batch and Leroy Williams ar­gued strong­ly for Beck­les, stat­ing she was a ca­pa­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tive. PNM stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira turned up at Bal­isi­er House to iden­ti­fy with the protest. Beck­les has re­ject­ed a Man­ning of­fer of a diplo­mat­ic post­ing at an un­named date to an un­spec­i­fied des­ig­na­tion.

Fol­low­ing the with­draw­al of Du­mas' can­di­da­cy, Gizel Thomas-Roberts was iden­ti­fied as his re­place­ment. Man­ning has been un­der in­tense protests with re­spect to a few seats as he leads the can­di­date screen­ing process for an elec­tion that must be held by Ju­ly 8.