Lone po­lit­i­cal leader can­di­date for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is promis­ing that the lead­er­ship of the par­ty will be do­ing things dif­fer­ent­ly for its mem­bers and sup­port­ers in To­ba­go.

Speak­ing at the One PNM team’s meet­ing in Buc­coo on Tues­day night, she said she un­der­stood the pain mem­bers in To­ba­go were feel­ing.

“In Trinidad plen­ty hurt­ing, and there’s more hurt­ing in To­ba­go. I mean, some Trinida­di­ans mightn’t be too hap­py to hear me say that. But when you have lost your both mem­bers of par­lia­ment and you on­ly have one per­son in the as­sem­bly, that ain’t easy,” she said. “So I un­der­stand the pain and the hurt that many of you all feel.”

She told sup­port­ers her lead­er­ship style is not ag­gres­sive, but is based on lis­ten­ing.

“You know, you hear some say­ing, I ain’t loud enough, I ain’t ag­gres­sive enough, I ain’t talk­ing enough. She too soft. There’s a lot of wis­dom in lis­ten­ing, and some lis­ten­ers don’t al­ways speak very quick­ly, and I’m one of those who do a lot of lis­ten­ing. So yes, you might not find I’m ag­gres­sive, but all of you know I’m here. The most pow­er­ful method of com­mu­ni­ca­tion is si­lence,” Beck­les said.

She said re­build­ing the PNM means do­ing things dif­fer­ent­ly.

“That is why I’m say­ing that you may have some things you want to ask me or tell me, be­cause I am go­ing to be do­ing things dif­fer­ent­ly, and it would not be busi­ness as usu­al.”

She al­so said that par­ty of­fi­cers must present a plan soon af­ter the elec­tion. “I have made it very clear that there’s a gen­er­al coun­cil, and when the of­fi­cers come in the first three months, they have to present their plan for the next two years, and they heard it from me loud and clear.”

Beck­les promised a clos­er work­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Trinidad and To­ba­go lead­er­ships, in­clud­ing more meet­ings in To­ba­go. 

“One of the things that we have to work on is the im­prove­ment be­tween the To­ba­go Coun­cil and the Trinidad lead­er­ship. Un­der my watch, it will be yes, and the gen­er­al coun­cil needs to come to To­ba­go more of­ten. So it can’t be that every­thing is in that way, and we not com­ing up here.”

She asked the par­ty to ac­cept past mis­takes and fo­cus on uni­ty.

“If you don’t ac­cept that you made mis­takes, then you can­not re­cov­er.”

Beck­les re­mind­ed sup­port­ers of the par­ty’s re­silience say­ing, “If you chop it, it will grow back, and if you burn it, it will grow back. That is the re­silience of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.”