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Thursday, May 15, 2025

Anita open to serving as Opposition senator

by

KAY-MARIE FLETCHER
6 days ago
20250509
Anita Haynes former opposition MP greets Foster Cummings PNM general secretary and former MP during the appointment of Pennelope Beckles as the Opposition Leader in Parliament hosted by her excellency Christine Kangaloo at President’s House, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain last Friday.

Anita Haynes former opposition MP greets Foster Cummings PNM general secretary and former MP during the appointment of Pennelope Beckles as the Opposition Leader in Parliament hosted by her excellency Christine Kangaloo at President’s House, St Ann’s, Port-of-Spain last Friday.

ROGER JACOB

All eyes are on Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ next act - choos­ing her sen­a­tors.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will on­ly be af­ford­ed six Op­po­si­tion mem­bers in the Sen­ate.

And while sev­er­al PNM mem­bers, in­clud­ing de­feat­ed San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi and for­mer sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne, are said to be tout­ed for the Up­per House, for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne is al­so be­ing ru­moured as a pos­si­ble choice.

Af­ter be­ing re­ject­ed by the UNC to con­test the Tabaquite con­stituen­cy—a seat she held since 2020— Haynes-Al­leyne ap­peared on the PNM’s cam­paign trail.

She was al­so in at­ten­dance at Beck­les’ swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny on Tues­day.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Haynes-Al­leyne yes­ter­day, she did not de­ny her in­ter­est in serv­ing as an Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor.

While keep­ing her “any­thing-is-pos­si­ble” ap­proach, Haynes-Al­leyne was coy on whether she’s al­ready been of­fered the po­si­tion.

“At this junc­ture, I am look­ing on, but I would say this: any de­ci­sion I make when it comes to tran­si­tion­ing, it would be made based on a deep sense of na­tion­al ser­vice.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Beck­les were fu­tile.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al PNM mem­bers aren’t op­posed to the idea of Haynes-Al­leyne join­ing team PNM in the Sen­ate ei­ther.

PNM sources de­scribed Haynes-Al­leyne as a bril­liant woman and a good pick, but ul­ti­mate­ly, the de­ci­sion is up to the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings and Vice Chair­man Colm Im­bert said the de­ci­sion is sole­ly based on Beck­les.

De­feat­ed La Brea can­di­date Ran­dall Mitchell said, “The se­lec­tion of Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors is with­in the sole dis­cre­tion of the leader of the op­po­si­tion. It is for, us, the mem­bers, to trust the leader that she ex­er­cis­es that dis­cre­tion in the in­ter­est of the coun­try and the par­ty.”

For­mer sen­a­tor Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said, “If this is what she (Beck­les) wants, so shall it be.”

How­ev­er, for­mer UNC sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said switch­ing po­lit­i­cal sides shows a per­son’s cred­i­bil­i­ty.

“How can we be­lieve that you were say­ing some­thing in the in­ter­est of the coun­try, when you are so quick­ly ready to now en­dorse some­one that you’ve spent five years or even longer crit­i­cis­ing? It’s a state­ment about your per­son­al cred­i­bil­i­ty.”


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