Gail Alexan­der

PNM Diego Mar­tin East MP Colm Im­bert has re­mained mum on whether he will sup­port fel­low MP Kei­th Row­ley for the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader. Im­bert in­di­cat­ed his po­si­tion to re­porters be­fore yes­ter­day's PNM news con­fer­ence. Im­bert said To­ba­go PNM leader Orville Lon­don was the one who sug­gest­ed that the 12 PNM MPs write the Pres­i­dent in­di­cat­ing their sup­port for Row­ley.

Im­bert said the Gen­er­al Coun­cil did not have the au­thor­i­ty to in­struct an MP on who they should sup­port as Op­po­si­tion Leader. He said it was "sim­ply a rec­om­men­da­tion com­ing from the floor" and ac­cept­ed by the coun­cil that it should be made to MPs. "But it's not an in­struc­tion... The MPS are free to sup­port who­ev­er they please," he said. Asked if he would sup­port Row­ley for Op­po­si­tion Leader, Im­bert said: "I'd pre­fer not to an­swer that ques­tion at this point in time."

When Im­bert ar­rived for the coun­cil meet­ing, he told re­porters that he was se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing the post of po­lit­i­cal leader. He said he felt he could get the sup­port for it. On whether Man­ning should step down as leader, Pt Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon, be­fore the coun­cil meet­ing, had ad­vised against "hasty de­ci­sions." For­mer Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les was among those who at­tend­ed the coun­cil meet­ing.