Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), An­cil Den­nis, has shut down claims that the par­ty is im­plod­ing af­ter re­ports sur­faced that the move to gath­er sig­na­tures among its MPs to fa­cil­i­tate the ap­point­ment of Stu­art Young as prime min­is­ter had hit a stum­bling block.

PNM MPs were asked to sign a doc­u­ment en­dors­ing Young as prime min­is­ter when Dr Kei­th Row­ley steps down on Wednes­day. The doc­u­ment was to be pre­sent­ed to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo. How­ev­er, some MPs signed the doc­u­ment while oth­ers did not, which has placed Young in lim­bo.

Eleven MPs vot­ed for Young to suc­ceed Row­ley while nine sup­port­ed Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les dur­ing a par­lia­men­tary re­treat in To­ba­go on the week­end. Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley ab­stained.

As Den­nis made his way in­to Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, to at­tend a Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee meet­ing, to dis­cuss se­ri­ous mat­ters with­in the par­ty, he was ap­proached by re­porters and asked about the list the par­ty's MPs were asked to sign.

"No! I don't know of any list. I don't know of that de­vel­op­ment," he said.

He made it clear that the meet­ing was not to dis­cuss Mon­day's vot­ing process but ad­mit­ted the is­sue of Row­ley's pend­ing res­ig­na­tion may arise.

"This is a typ­i­cal meet­ing by the par­ty."

Den­nis said be­fore a PNM Gen­er­al Coun­cil is called every month, the par­ty nor­mal­ly has a Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing.

Asked who was his per­son­al choice for PM, Den­nis said the Par­lia­men­tary team of MPs went through a vot­ing process for Young to be­come the coun­try's next PM.

"They did in­di­cate, com­ing out of that meet­ing, that Stu­art Young got the ma­jor­i­ty of sup­port...and there­fore the con­sen­sus among the MPs is that he will re­place Dr Row­ley as prime min­is­ter when he does re­sign. And of course, he has my fullest sup­port as a re­sult of that process."

It was point­ed out to Den­nis that there was a feel­ing on the ground that the PNM was im­plod­ing be­cause of the on­go­ing rum­blings with­in the par­ty.

Den­nis fired back, "Ridicu­lous! Of course, there is no im­plo­sion. What you will have is a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion on how this should be car­ried out."

He said peo­ple are free to ex­press their views and opin­ions be­cause T&T is a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety.

"But at the end of the day, con­sen­sus will be achieved. The PNM will con­tin­ue to car­ry out its busi­ness and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Pressed on if this was a tur­bu­lent time for the par­ty, Den­nis said it was a tran­si­tion­al pe­ri­od, one that comes with "chal­lenges."

"It's part of the hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, es­pe­cial­ly in the sphere of pol­i­tics."

He ad­mit­ted some con­cerns arose from Row­ley's pend­ing res­ig­na­tion.

Not­ing the mood of the peo­ple was mixed with con­cern and sad­ness, he said, "Some peo­ple are sad to see Dr Row­ley step aside as Prime Min­is­ter and sub­se­quent­ly po­lit­i­cal leader."

He said Row­ley led this coun­try for nine years through dif­fi­cult times, which was not easy, and gave 45 years of ser­vice.

"All in all, the mem­bers of this par­ty are ex­cit­ed and look­ing for­ward to the fu­ture of the PNM...tran­si­tion­ing through this pe­ri­od."

The par­ty, he said, faced its first tran­si­tion when founder and first prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams died.

"And here we are again with an­oth­er tran­si­tion. But this time, in very unique cir­cum­stances where it is not a PM dy­ing in of­fice or a PM vot­ed out of of­fice...but on this oc­ca­sion, it's about Dr Row­ley tak­ing a de­ci­sion which is his per­son­al choice to step aside as Prime Min­is­ter of T&T."

The meet­ing came hours af­ter a Cab­i­net meet­ing host­ed by Row­ley at White­hall, Port-of-Spain.

Den­nis was one of sev­er­al par­ty mem­bers who showed up for the evening meet­ing. Among the oth­ers were En­er­gy Min­is­ter Young, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment Fos­ter Cum­mings, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Beck­les, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, To­co/San­gre Grande MP Roger Mon­roe, for­mer cul­ture min­is­ter Joan Yuille-Williams and labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus.

Sinanan told re­porters that the great thing about the PNM was that "it al­ways at­tracts at­ten­tion."

Asked if peo­ple might think there is in­sta­bil­i­ty in the par­ty, a smil­ing Sinanan point­ed to the new­ly built Bal­isi­er House.

"The PNM has sta­bil­i­ty," as he made ref­er­ence to the sta­bil­i­ty of the build­ing and the par­ty's struc­ture.

"That is why Trinidad and To­ba­go will al­ways make sure the PNM is there."