Gail Alexan­der

Re­ject­ed PNM Ari­ma in­cum­bent MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is be­ing wooed by mem­bers of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) to con­test Ari­ma for COP in the uni­ty arrange­ment with UNC, ac­cord­ing to a se­nior COP of­fi­cial.

While Beck­les is re­main­ing silent to Guardian calls on the is­sue, Bob­by Charles, sec­re­tary of her Ari­ma con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, said yes­ter­day: "I have been in con­stant con­tact with Pen­ny and I don't think she would be cross­ing no floor to join the Op­po­si­tion–her rep­u­ta­tion will be tar­nished if she jumps ship and she knows it. "So I know she would not do that...I know she will re­main in the PNM and work with the par­ty," he said. Charles spoke af­ter a 12 noon meet­ing yes­ter­day of PNM's Ari­ma con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive with PNM deputy leader Joan Yuille-Williams at Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain. This con­cerned the sit­u­a­tion in PNM's Ari­ma unit which has been suf­fer­ing a fall­out af­ter Beck­les was dropped as the can­di­date last week. Prospec­tive nom­i­nee is for­mer PNM sen­a­tor, Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing.

Both were screened for the seat over a week ago. Al­though Beck­les was nom­i­nat­ed by 19 par­ty groups in Ari­ma and Leza­ma-Lee Sing by three, the lat­ter got the nod. Beck­les had been of­fered a diplo­mat­ic post­ing which she re­fused. Af­ter Leza­ma-Lee Sing was cho­sen, Beck­les said she would still work with the con­stituen­cy. Apart from be­ing MP, Beck­les is al­so PNM's co-or­di­na­tor for Ari­ma. Beck­les had laud­ed the Jan­u­ary as­sump­tion to of­fice by UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment where women were con­cerned. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, thank­ing Beck­les sub­se­quent­ly, had said she had at­tend­ed law school with Beck­les. Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not an­swer calls yes­ter­day, and UNC deputy leader Su­ruj Ram­bachan said that he "did not think" UNC ap­proach­es were made to Beck­les. How­ev­er, a COP spokesman said COP of­fi­cials in Ari­ma had spo­ken with Beck­les a few days ago about the elec­tion cli­mate and an "ap­proach was made" re­gard­ing the Ari­ma seat.

Charles said PNM deputy leader Yuille-Williams had asked mem­bers of the Ari­ma unit to a meet­ing yes­ter­day to con­sol­i­date the sit­u­a­tion in the seat and get Beck­les to work with Leza­ma-Lee Sing. "They're very con­cerned about our sit­u­a­tion and how the prospec­tive nom­i­nee, and she is not the can­di­date yet, has been han­dling the ex­ec­u­tive," he said, "She brought her own team in, but she has now been man­dat­ed to work with our ex­ec­u­tive. "Fifty per cent of our ex­ec­u­tive said they were not in favour of work­ing with the prospec­tive nom­i­nee and the time to go cam­paign­ing house-to-house is de­creas­ing." Af­ter the meet­ing with Yuille-Williams, Charles said, an­oth­er meet­ing was sched­uled for last night, for Beck­les and Leza­ma-Lee Sing to meet and where the "olive branch" could be ex­tend­ed to bring peace to the sit­u­a­tion.

"Since Ms Beck­les is co-or­di­na­tor of the seat as well as MP, if she with­draws as co-or­di­na­tor, the par­ty will have to de­cide what to do and the par­ty is al­ready con­cerned about sev­en seats so it would not want Ari­ma to be an eighth con­cern," he said. He said that af­ter be­ing dropped as the can­di­date, Beck­les has con­tin­ued to work with the con­stituen­cy. Charles said the ex­ec­u­tive has re­ceived a writ­ten apol­o­gy from PNM's screen­ing com­mit­tee re­gard­ing what tran­spired af­ter screen­ing when Lee-Sing was an­nounced as the prospec­tive can­di­date. Charles said a de­ci­sion could not have been an­nounced, since the PNM's Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive still has to rat­i­fy this. He said he was con­cerned about the "be­hav­iour" of screen­ing team leader Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning who, he said, had an­nounced the de­ci­sion be­fore rat­i­fi­ca­tion.