DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings is seek­ing to dis­pel con­cerns that there is bad blood be­tween him­self and par­ty chair­man Stu­art Young.

The two were ru­moured to be at odds last month af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley wound up his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate telling House Speak­er Bridgid Anisette-George he was not sure how long he had re­main­ing in pol­i­tics. Row­ley al­so al­lud­ed to the speech be­ing his Par­lia­men­tary swan song.

There were re­ports that both Young and Cum­mings had an in­ter­est in lead­ing the PNM. Dur­ing the fi­nal night of the Di­vali Na­gar, both men de­nied there was any dis­cord with­in the par­ty.

How­ev­er, dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny’s launch of its Spe­cial Elite Se­cu­ri­ty Unit yes­ter­day, Cum­mings ad­dressed his re­la­tion­ship with Young head-on, say­ing it re­mains sym­bi­ot­ic.

“Well, I don’t know why peo­ple would think that there is an is­sue be­cause we have a po­lit­i­cal leader who is in of­fice un­til 2026. Min­is­ter Young and I work quite well to­geth­er as chair­man and gen­er­al sec­re­tary.”

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two mem­bers of the PNM ex­ec­u­tive was first brought in­to ques­tion in 2021 by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Mooni­lal claimed there were signs of dis­cord with­in the Cab­i­net con­cern­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­emp­tion pol­i­cy. He cit­ed a screen­shot of a What­sApp con­ver­sa­tion in which “Fos­ter Cum­mings” ap­peared to chal­lenge “Stu­art Young” over the pol­i­cy.

PNM a ‘dis­ci­plined or­gan­i­sa­tion’

Mean­while, Cum­mings de­clined to clar­i­fy whether he had been di­rect­ed to use the term “can­celled” in the state­ment re­gard­ing the PNM’s 51st an­nu­al con­ven­tion and in­ter­nal elec­tion.

Al­though the event was even­tu­al­ly post­poned, the ini­tial state­ment, dat­ed Oc­to­ber 11 and bear­ing Cum­mings’ sig­na­ture, re­ferred to it as can­celled.

The is­sue sparked con­tro­ver­sy dur­ing the Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing on Oc­to­ber 19, where for­mer labour min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of vi­o­lat­ing the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion by mak­ing the an­nounce­ment pub­lic with­out first con­sult­ing the coun­cil and se­cur­ing its ap­proval.

De­spite the back­lash, Cum­mings did not elab­o­rate on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the state­ment’s re­lease.

“To re­spond to that would be like beat­ing a dead dog. That mat­ter is way be­hind us and we are pro­gress­ing well to­wards or­gan­is­ing our­selves to win the next gen­er­al elec­tion.”

The PNM’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary al­so dis­tanced the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive from a leaked video show­ing the Laven­tille West Women’s League’s ini­tial vote for its nom­i­nee to rep­re­sent the con­stituen­cy.

The video, record­ed on Oc­to­ber 28, showed when mem­bers were asked to in­di­cate their sup­port for the in­cum­bent MP, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds. Hinds re­ceived a sin­gle vote, while his main chal­lenger, Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man and at­tor­ney Ka­reem Mar­celle, se­cured 38 votes.

De­spite the con­tro­ver­sy, Cum­mings ap­peared un­both­ered by the sit­u­a­tion.

“Those are not of­fi­cial videos. We don’t have any such videos em­a­nat­ing out of Bal­isi­er House. We are a very or­gan­ised and dis­ci­plined or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

Asked if he had any no­tion as to when the gen­er­al elec­tion would be called, Cum­mings said he did not wish to “spec­u­late” as that can on­ly be de­ter­mined by the Prime Min­is­ter.