Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ap­pears to be mak­ing progress in ef­forts to re­solve in­ter­nal ten­sions with­in its San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy fol­low­ing a 90-minute meet­ing on Tues­day in­volv­ing the par­ty’s lead­er­ship, con­stituen­cy rep­re­sen­ta­tives and San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, PNM Po­lit­i­cal Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les de­scribed the meet­ing as end­ing “in a very good way,” while Man­ning char­ac­terised it as “cor­dial.”

The meet­ing brought to­geth­er the San Fer­nan­do East Con­stituen­cy Group (CG), com­pris­ing mem­bers of var­i­ous con­stituen­cy units, and was aimed at ad­dress­ing on­go­ing con­cerns in the con­stituen­cy.

Beck­les said she would elab­o­rate fur­ther on the mat­ter, as well as na­tion­al is­sues, dur­ing to­day’s PNM me­dia brief­ing.

Tues­day’s meet­ing was the lat­est step by the par­ty’s lead­er­ship to ad­dress ten­sions in San Fer­nan­do East. The is­sue stems from com­plaints sub­mit­ted in June by for­mer San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is and lat­er by Man­ning.

The na­ture of Alex­is’ com­plaint has not been dis­closed.

Man­ning had raised con­cerns with the lead­er­ship about the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of par­ty groups in the con­stituen­cy, al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and oth­er is­sues, in­clud­ing what he de­scribed as Alex­is’ modus operan­di.

An in­ves­tiga­tive team led by PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader San­jiv Bood­hu ex­am­ined the al­le­ga­tions and found no ev­i­dence of cor­rup­tion.

The team’s rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of par­ty groups as re­quest­ed by Man­ning, are cur­rent­ly be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

Fol­low­ing a pub­lic ex­change of state­ments be­tween Man­ning and Alex­is last week, as well as the res­ig­na­tion of sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, the par­ty’s lead­er­ship met with the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive on Sun­day.

The re­main­ing ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, in­clud­ing Alex­is, re­signed on Mon­day.

Af­ter Man­ning pub­licly crit­i­cised the sit­u­a­tion again on Mon­day, the lead­er­ship is­sued a re­buke and out­lined the in­ves­tiga­tive process that had been un­der­tak­en.
How­ev­er, at­ten­dees said Tues­day’s con­stituen­cy group meet­ing stood in sharp con­trast to the pub­lic dis­putes of re­cent days.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 peo­ple at­tend­ed, rep­re­sent­ing par­ty groups and oth­er San Fer­nan­do East units, as well as ex-of­fi­cio mem­bers. Alex­is was not present.

Beck­les chaired the pro­ceed­ings, while Bood­hu out­lined the de­tails of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore the floor was opened for ques­tions and com­ments.

At­ten­dees told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that there were no ar­gu­ments dur­ing the meet­ing and that “very con­struc­tive, pos­i­tive views” were ex­pressed.

Man­ning, who sat at the head ta­ble along­side par­ty lead­ers, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the dis­cus­sions and asked ques­tions. Ac­cord­ing to par­ty of­fi­cials, he was “very re­spect­ful and calm.”

Asked about the out­come, PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les said yes­ter­day: “The meet­ing was very pro­duc­tive and pos­i­tive. There was no ac­ri­mo­ny. The MP was warm­ly wel­comed and par­tic­i­pat­ed in the dis­cus­sions. The lead­er­ship was al­so well re­ceived by the con­stituen­cy group.”

He added: “I’m very heart­ened by what tran­spired and look for­ward to more pro­duc­tive ses­sions like this mov­ing for­ward as we work with all con­cerned to set­tle the is­sues con­fronting the con­stituen­cy. I’m grate­ful to the po­lit­i­cal leader, lead­er­ship team, the MP and con­stituents of San Fer­nan­do East for the ma­tu­ri­ty demon­strat­ed.”

When asked whether he now had greater con­fi­dence in the process or if con­cerns re­mained, Man­ning re­spond­ed briefly: “I’m adopt­ing a wait-and-see at­ti­tude.”

Par­ty of­fi­cials said the con­stituen­cy is now mov­ing to­ward the es­tab­lish­ment of a new San Fer­nan­do East ex­ec­u­tive, with the im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty be­ing the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of par­ty groups.

The com­mit­tee over­see­ing that ex­er­cise is ex­pect­ed to com­plete the process by to­mor­row.

At the cen­tre of the con­cerns raised by Man­ning was the al­leged “clan­des­tine for­ma­tion” of par­ty groups by for­mer ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

Of­fi­cials said records in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy will be cross-checked against those main­tained at the PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters. Once the ver­i­fi­ca­tion process is com­plet­ed, the par­ty groups, along with the San Fer­nan­do East Youth League and Women’s League will hold their elec­tions. The con­stituen­cy elec­tions are set to take place by mid-Sep­tem­ber, ahead of the PNM con­ven­tion in No­vem­ber.

Hazel Man­ning, moth­er of the MP and wid­ow of for­mer prime min­is­ter and long­time San Fer­nan­do East MP Patrick Man­ning, is ex­pect­ed to seek the post of chair­man.

The 24-mem­ber ex­ec­u­tive in­cludes ex-of­fi­cio mem­bers drawn from the con­stituen­cy’s leg­isla­tive group, in­clud­ing the MP, as well as any sen­a­tors, al­der­men and coun­cil­lors rep­re­sent­ing San Fer­nan­do East.