“The PNM is one!”

That’s the mes­sage which de­feat­ed can­di­date Mustapha Ab­dul-Hamid is send­ing to his sup­port­ers and the wider mem­ber­ship of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the face of his de­feat and is now pledg­ing his “un­wa­ver­ing sup­port,” for the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

In a state­ment on Mon­day to sup­port­ers and the me­dia on his de­feat Ab­dul-Hamid con­grat­u­lat­ed Row­ley for the “clear and de­ci­sive vic­to­ry” of Team Red in the in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Ab­dul-Hamid who was crit­i­cised ex­ten­sive­ly and ac­cused of trea­son by the par­ty’s leader on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form in the lead up to in­ter­nal elec­tion said he ac­cept­ed the out­come of the elec­tion and urged all PNM mem­bers to do “like­wise.”

He said, “as al­ways, the po­lit­i­cal leader con­duct­ed a ro­bust cam­paign, tak­ing his team on his shoul­ders and per­son­al­ly car­ry­ing all his can­di­dates to vic­to­ry.”

Ab­dul-Hamid sig­nalled his readi­ness to put the elec­tion crit­i­cisms be­hind him say­ing the “PNM is one!," We have a du­ly elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive with whom we must now work to strength­en the par­ty on the ba­sis of our long-stand­ing prin­ci­ples and val­ues.”

As he thanked sup­port­ers he ac­knowl­edged some peo­ple “had to over­come ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult chal­lenges and ob­sta­cles in or­der to be able to cast your vote.”

Ab­dul-Hamid said de­spite the chal­lenges they had shown “great courage in stand­ing up for that which you be­lieve to be right.”

He paid trib­ute to those peo­ple say­ing they had “played their part “in a dig­ni­fied, ho­n­ourable and states­man­like cam­paign. I ask that you keep faith in the great ideals of the PNM and know that your cause is wor­thy. You have done your fam­i­ly and your par­ty proud.”

To those who may have doubts about it, Ab­dul-Hamid said he has been and will con­tin­ue to be a “com­mit­ted and prin­ci­pled mem­ber of the PNM. My sup­port of the par­ty, the in­sti­tu­tion, its leader and its lead­er­ship, is com­plete and un­wa­ver­ing.”

He said he stands “in the con­vic­tion that the coun­try de­pends on the PNM for its well-be­ing. We are the on­ly vi­able op­tion for good gov­er­nance and com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment,” he said.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said it was no sur­prise that Team Red made a clean sweep at the polls. James said Ab­dul-Hamid and those op­posed to Team Red stood no chance.

“Mustapha was an in­vet­er­ate sup­port­er of Patrick Man­ning and was against Row­ley as well, so he did not stand a chance. Man­ning’s fac­tion pe­tered with his pass­ing.”

James said in the PNM when “one ad­min­is­tra­tion los­es and an­oth­er takes over, mem­bers of the for­mer one would not be suc­cess­ful un­less they join the cur­rent one.”

He said the elec­tion of the post of chair­man con­test­ed by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and Ab­dul-Hamid “might have been the most in­ter­est­ing part of the elec­tions,” giv­en that the post of the po­lit­i­cal leader was not up for grabs.

But he ac­knowl­edged that it was just a mat­ter of “the chang­ing of the guard mov­ing from Franklin Khan to the Im­bert, that was pre­dictable as well.”

Just over 10,000 of the 90,000 mem­bers of the par­ty who were en­ti­tled to vote ex­er­cised that right in Sun­day’s poll and James said it was no sur­prise that the vot­er turnout was low.

He said there was no re­al ex­cite­ment in the elec­tion. “The post of the po­lit­i­cal leader was not up for grabs so that kind of ap­peal would not have been there," in ad­di­tion to which "peo­ple eval­u­at­ed the sit­u­a­tion and de­ter­mined that there was not the lev­el of in­ter­est to drag them out of their spaces.”

Ac­cord­ing to James, peo­ple de­ter­mined be­fore-hand that Team Red would have won and noth­ing would change, “it was a prag­mat­ic lack of in­ter­est, it is not sim­ply not hav­ing in­ter­est but not hav­ing in­ter­est be­cause of a de­ter­mi­na­tion that noth­ing is go­ing to change as a re­sult of my ac­tion,” while some peo­ple would call it “cyn­i­cism,” James view it as “prag­ma­tism.”

“Peo­ple would have asked them­selves what is the point of my go­ing out to vote would it change the price of co­coa, do I re­al­ly want the cur­rent mem­ber­ship to change? Would my vote re­al­ly make a dif­fer­ence?” he said.

Asked whether it’s now a case of Kei­th Row­ley’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, James said, “yes, in a prac­ti­cal sense, it is his group of peo­ple who are hold­ing sway, the peo­ple he chose and it’s his ideas that re­al­ly mat­ter now.”

RE­SULTS

Chair­man

Colm Im­bert 7,808

Mustapha Ab­dul Hamid 1,301

Vice-Chair­man

Robert Le Hunte 7,807

Joseph Ross 1,092

Ronald Boynes 336

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary

Fos­ter Cum­mings 7,677

Chin­ua Al­leyne 1,627

As­sis­tant Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary

Daniel Dook­ie 7,833

Abi­gail Cox 1,444

Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer

Overand Pad­more 8,011

Clay­ton Black­man 1,123

Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer

Lau­rel Leza­ma - Lee Sing 8,425

Bren­non Pat­ter­son 845

So­cial Me­dia Of­fi­cer

Avinash Singh 7,349

Dane Wil­son 841

Miguel Don­awa 989

Elec­tions Of­fi­cer

In­dar Paras­ram 7,010

Dar­i­an Mar­celle 1,147

Li­nus Rogers 1,098

Field Of­fi­cer

Ab­don Ma­son 7,643

Nal Ram­s­ingh 1,702

Youth Of­fi­cer

Ndale Young 7,665

Hillan More­an 1,555

Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer

Irene Hinds 8,375

Eber Steele-At­tong 777