KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) stag­gers back to its feet in the af­ter­math of a crush­ing elec­toral de­feat on Mon­day, it turns to a fa­mil­iar but of­ten over­looked face—a woman whose po­lit­i­cal jour­ney has been de­fined not by noise but en­durance.

Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, daugh­ter of a trade union­ist, has emerged as the coun­try’s first fe­male Op­po­si­tion Leader for the PNM—a his­toric ap­point­ment shaped as much by tim­ing as tenac­i­ty.

She was raised in the small, close-knit vil­lage of Bor­de Narve in south Trinidad. Her fa­ther, Li­onel Beck­les, was a com­mit­ted mem­ber of the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union. Grow­ing up with four broth­ers and one sis­ter, Beck­les-Robin­son’s ear­ly life was shaped by dis­ci­pline, pur­pose, and the qui­et strength of work­ing-class re­silience.

A for­mer stu­dent of St Joseph’s Con­vent, San Fer­nan­do, and lat­er a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, Beck­les-Robin­son en­tered pol­i­tics with the poise of some­one more in­ter­est­ed in ser­vice than spec­ta­cle. By the ear­ly 1990s, she had al­ready carved out a name for her­self in Ari­ma, the seat she has long rep­re­sent­ed. She of­fi­cial­ly en­tered pol­i­tics as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in 1995.

Her ré­sumé boasts sev­er­al ti­tles: Sen­a­tor at 34, first fe­male deputy Speak­er, min­is­ter in three port­fo­lios, and lat­er, per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions. Yet through the ac­co­lades and ap­point­ments, Beck­les-Robin­son re­mained a para­dox—cen­tral to the PNM, yet of­ten on its out­er edges. She was over­looked, passed over, and fired once by her then-leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley. And yet, she nev­er left.

Now, fol­low­ing the PNM’s drop to just 13 seats in the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion — a col­lapse that saw Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turn as Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day—Beck­les-Robin­son steps in­to un­chart­ed ter­ri­to­ry for her­self and her par­ty.

“She was the nat­ur­al choice,” said po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, ref­er­enc­ing Beck­les-Robin­son’s de­ci­sion to chal­lenge Stu­art Young for the prime min­is­te­r­i­al nom­i­na­tion dur­ing the PNM’s cau­cus in To­ba­go.

“She is a sea­soned politi­cian, she is ami­able, she is like­able, so I think it is a good choice.”

Ram­per­sad added that while Beck­les-Robin­son has nev­er served as Op­po­si­tion Leader, she once held the post of Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness in the Sen­ate.

“It’s left to be seen how she would per­form as Op­po­si­tion Leader.”

Whether it was the right time for her ap­point­ment, af­ter a heavy de­feat, Ram­per­sad said it would not have been wise to in­stall Young in that seat be­cause he was re­ject­ed as prime min­is­ter, de­spite Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West con­stituents re-elect­ing him.

“So the ques­tion is who else? Some oth­ers may not want to take up the man­tle, and she was the favoured one. Whether she is up to the task or not would still have to be seen be­cause this is a nov­el­ty for her. She has nev­er been an Op­po­si­tion Leader. They nev­er had a fe­male Op­po­si­tion Leader, but she on­ly has to com­mand 12.”

As for her po­lit­i­cal style, Ram­per­sad not­ed that Beck­les-Robin­son does not en­gage in con­fronta­tion­al tac­tics — a tone many vot­ers are now re­ject­ing.

“Peo­ple are re­ject­ing that style of pol­i­tics. I be­lieve she brings a lev­el of calm wis­dom. That’s a break from the bul­ly­ing im­age as­so­ci­at­ed with for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his deputy Colm Im­bert over the years.”

Ram­per­sad added that Beck­les-Robin­son’s in­ter­nal chal­lenge will be man­ag­ing par­ty fig­ures like Im­bert and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings.

“Any par­ty suf­fers af­ter a de­feat like this, the up­hill bat­tle is in re­build­ing both cred­i­bil­i­ty and uni­ty.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James al­so sup­port­ed the ap­point­ment, not­ing that while she wasn’t the on­ly op­tion, she was a sol­id one.

“Pen­ny is as good as any oth­er se­lec­tion, and prob­a­bly bet­ter than most. Not on­ly that, her name has been com­ing up for a lit­tle while now. In the cau­cus in To­ba­go, her name came up and in fact, they tell us that the vote was 11-9 be­fore they went back in­to cau­cus and got unan­i­mous sup­port for Young,” James said.

James warned that her ef­fec­tive­ness will de­pend on how she nav­i­gates her con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ties and the par­ty’s in­ter­nal pol­i­tics.

“She is go­ing, I’m sure, to of­fend some peo­ple in some kind of way, but there are oth­er peo­ple who she will not of­fend, who are on her side and are go­ing to be quick to say, ‘Well, she made a mis­take here, a mis­take there,’ but she is the leader and in due course, she will over­come these weak­ness­es, if the weak­ness­es are the one that is go­ing to af­fect peo­ple in a way that they are not like­ly to sup­port her ful­ly,” James said.

He said the par­lia­men­tary cau­cus will have to ac­cept Beck­les-Robin­son’s lead­er­ship and that she must main­tain their sup­port.

He al­so ac­knowl­edged that the PNM has lost cred­i­bil­i­ty among the pub­lic, but said Beck­les-Robin­son’s hold on her Ari­ma con­stituen­cy re­mained strong.

“She has to spell out her agen­da. Peo­ple have lost in­ter­est and trust in the PNM. If she wants to turn that around, it starts now.”