All PNM hands on deck! That was the ral­ly­ing call yes­ter­day to PN­Mites from new "cap­tain" Kei­th Row­ley, as he left the par­ty's four deputy lead­ers in place. In ad­di­tion, Row­ley an­nounced that for­mer min­is­ter and MP John Ra­hael would be PNM's na­tion­al cam­paign man­ag­er for the up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. The deputy lead­ers are Orville Lon­don (To­ba­go), Nafeesa Mo­hammed, Joan Yuille-Williams and Dr Lenny Saith, all of whom had served un­der the pre­vi­ous Man­ning lead­er­ship. In his in­au­gur­al speech, Row­ley said the par­ty's re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was cur­rent­ly to put its best foot for­ward for the Ju­ly 26 elec­tions. He said there was no dead­line to make changes and this was not the time for ma­jor re­struc­tur­ing, since the par­ty was in gear for the polls.

He al­so called on PN­Mites to come back "home." As the PNM "turned a page," Row­ley thanked the out­go­ing ex­ec­u­tive and all who worked for the PNM. "We owe them a debt of grat­i­tude," he added. Row­ley said those who were leav­ing of­fice soon were not in dis­grace since there was the sat­is­fac­tion that they had brought the par­ty to where it was.

Row­ley es­pe­cial­ly paid trib­ute to the ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers, Con­rad Enill, Mar­tin Joseph and Jer­ry Narace, who re­signed re­cent­ly, and whom, he said, had promised to help the PNM. PNM's Gen­er­al Coun­cil is ex­pect­ed to fill the va­can­cies sub­se­quent­ly. Enill, whose last du­ty was yes­ter­day, quipped at the end of yes­ter­day's func­tion that the new leader would "turn out to be a dif­fi­cult taskmas­ter."

Enill an­nounced a week of screen­ing of lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­dates–start­ing to­day–by PNM's screen­ing team, which Row­ley now heads. To­day at Bal­isi­er House, PNM will screen nom­i­nees for Port-of-Spain, Diego Mar­tin, San Juan and Tu­na­puna. To­mor­row screen­ing con­tin­ues at PNM's south of­fice for San Fer­nan­do nom­i­nees and those from Pt Fortin, Siparia and Cou­va. On Wednes­day, nom­i­nees from Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas, San­gre Grande and Ma­yaro will be screened. On Thurs­day, oth­ers from Princes Town and Debe will be screened in South. The par­ty launch­es its lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion cam­paign with pre­sen­ta­tion of can­di­dates on Sun­day at Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre from 10 am.