KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The peo­ple of Ari­ma are dis­ap­point­ed that MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les was over­looked for the prime min­is­ter­ship of the coun­try in favour of Stu­art Young.

This was the over­ly­ing sen­ti­ment yes­ter­day when Guardian me­dia can­vassed Ari­ma con­stituents. Many said they were dis­ap­point­ed to learn that Young was cho­sen as Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s suc­ces­sor dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment par­lia­men­tary re­treat in To­ba­go on Mon­day. The PNM MPs vot­ed 11-9 in favour of Young for the po­si­tion, which will be­come va­cant when Row­ley steps down lat­er this year.

Res­i­dents praised Beck­les for the hard work she does for her con­stituents and dubbed her de­serv­ing of the lead­er­ship po­si­tion.

Ven­dor, Veron­i­ca Joseph, 65, said, “She de­serves to be the prime min­is­ter of this coun­try. She does an ex­cel­lent job as an MP right now. She reach­es out to the peo­ple, so I was very dis­ap­point­ed when I looked at the news last night and saw the choice the prime min­is­ter made ... This woman would walk through the mar­ket and just greet and meet the peo­ple. She’s a peo­ple per­son.”

An­oth­er res­i­dent said, “Pen­ne­lope all the way! I couldn’t be­lieve they chose Young over her.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Beck­les told Guardian Me­dia she was not ready to talk on the is­sue yet. How­ev­er, she said she was “smil­ing about the re­sponse from her con­stituents.”

Al­though Dr Row­ley ab­stained from vot­ing for his suc­ces­sor dur­ing the re­treat, some Ari­ma res­i­dents were con­vinced it was all the prime min­is­ter’s do­ing.

Res­i­dent Earl Miller said, “This is Row­ley and his han­dlers’ choice. Pen­ne­lope Beck­les was there for so many years and she worked in dif­fer­ent min­istries, so I think she has more ex­pe­ri­ence. There are many peo­ple in the par­ty who were there all the time. As far as I’m con­cerned, Stu­art Young is a new­bie ... There was once a time when the peo­ple of Ari­ma said no Pen­ny, no vote and they meant it. She is well loved.”

But why are some Ari­ma res­i­dents not in sup­port of Young?

Some peo­ple said they be­lieve Young is un­re­lat­able and ar­ro­gant. Oth­ers called him too priv­i­leged.

Kristal Man­swell said, “PNM is a grass­roots par­ty. We want some­one who is on the ground, some­one who could re­late to peo­ple ... in re­la­tion to PNM sup­port­ers, many of them come from less priv­i­leged house­holds so they want some­one to re­late to that strug­gle as op­posed to some­one who has been well off most of their lives.”

But it’s not on­ly Ari­ma con­stituents who favoured Beck­les.

Con­stituents in Port-of-Spain and Diego Mar­tin West al­so had their views on Young as PM in wait­ing.

Glen­coe res­i­dent Stephen Afoon said, “Not Stu­art Young. I think he is still a lit­tle too in­ex­pe­ri­enced. I think Miss Beck­les is the right per­son.”

A Port-of-Spain res­i­dent said, “I don’t want Stu­art Young. The coun­try gone to the dogs any time Stu­art Young go there.”

Af­ter en­ter­ing the po­lit­i­cal are­na as an Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in 1995, Beck­les served as Ari­ma MP from 2000 to 2010 and again from 2020 to the present.

Dur­ing her tenure, she held var­i­ous min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Tourism and Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and the En­vi­ron­ment. She was al­so the first woman to have ever been elect­ed Deputy Speak­er in the his­to­ry of T&T’s par­lia­ment.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the is­sue, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath point­ed to Beck­les’ past pos­si­bly com­ing back to haunt her.

Dr Ra­goonath said, “She was one of those few peo­ple who has ever chal­lenged Kei­th Row­ley and that is the kind of ar­ro­gance that I would say that we get out of the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion, peo­ple who chal­lenge him do not leave un­scathed and to that ex­tent, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les was not giv­en the sup­port.”

Beck­les was de­feat­ed by Dr Row­ley for the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader in 2014. Row­ley’s team won by a land­slide against Beck­les’ team with 19,000 votes from an 81,000 mem­ber­ship at the time.

In 2014, Young made his po­lit­i­cal en­trance to the par­ty, serv­ing as a tem­po­rary op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor on March 18 2014. Fast for­ward a lit­tle over a year lat­er, he made a per­ma­nent mark in the par­lia­ment by be­com­ing Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP in 2015.

It’s ex­pect­ed that Young will step in­to Dr Row­ley’s shoes in the month of March. How­ev­er, while Young was se­lect­ed to suc­ceed as prime min­is­ter, the PNM will host a con­ven­tion on Sep­tem­ber 28, where the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship po­si­tion will be de­cid­ed up­on.