Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis says he will not re­sign, even as oth­er par­ty of­fi­cials have stepped down fol­low­ing the par­ty’s heavy de­feat in Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“There will be no res­ig­na­tion from me while I am on the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive as a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader,” Den­nis told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

“I am there by virtue of be­ing the elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM in To­ba­go, so there will be no such res­ig­na­tion from me.”

He added, “Ac­cord­ing to the PNM’s con­sti­tu­tion, the elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM in To­ba­go, be­cause PNM in To­ba­go has its own in­ter­nal elec­tions, so that po­lit­i­cal leader who is elect­ed in that elec­tion is al­so au­to­mat­i­cal­ly a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty and not nec­es­sar­i­ly ap­point­ed by the po­lit­i­cal leader na­tion­al­ly.”

His state­ment came hours af­ter PNM chair­man Stu­art Young re­signed. In a state­ment on his de­ci­sion, Young said he was step­ping down to al­low the par­ty to re­flect and move for­ward.

For­mer po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion five hours pri­or to Young, but said he will of­fi­cial­ly demit of­fice to­day, af­ter lead­ing the PNM for sev­er­al years. Ro­han Sinanan, an­oth­er deputy leader un­der Row­ley, al­so ten­dered his res­gi­na­tion yes­ter­day.

The PNM lost the To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West seats to the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) on Mon­day. Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar led her par­ty to a 26-13 win over the PNM.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts say the pub­lic turned away from the PNM be­cause of sev­er­al is­sues, in­clud­ing re­cent salary hikes for se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and a feel­ing that the par­ty was out of touch with the peo­ple.

De­spite the grow­ing calls for change with­in the par­ty, how­ev­er, Den­nis said he is stay­ing and plans to fo­cus on re­build­ing the PNM’s base in To­ba­go and help­ing the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive re­cov­er from the loss.

Den­nis said the PNM in To­ba­go still has work to do and he in­tends to lead that ef­fort.