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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Foster defends low turnout at PNM’s internal election

by

KAY-MARIE FLETCHER
35 days ago
20250625
Voters line up to cast their ballots during the People’s National Movement’s internal elections process at the Arima Boys’ Government Primary School, King Street, Arima, on Sunday.

Voters line up to cast their ballots during the People’s National Movement’s internal elections process at the Arima Boys’ Government Primary School, King Street, Arima, on Sunday.

ANISTO ALVES

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings is de­fend­ing the vot­er turnout in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions on Sun­day, at­tribut­ing it to the fact that the post of po­lit­i­cal leader was un­con­test­ed.

Of the 102,300 el­i­gi­ble mem­bers to vote, on­ly 7,100 vot­ed dur­ing the process as po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ One PNM slate took 14 of 15 ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions, ac­cord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary re­sults pro­vid­ed by the par­ty’s Elec­tion Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Cum­mings re­vealed that less than 10,000 vot­ed in the par­ty’s last in­ter­nal elec­tion as well.

“The over­all turnout for the elec­tion was ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7,100 per­sons. I make the point that the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader was un­con­test­ed. When the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader is con­test­ed, that sort of dri­ves per­sons to want to come out to par­tic­i­pate,” he said.

“We went up to elect the re­main­ing mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive mi­nus the po­lit­i­cal leader, who no­body chal­lenged … We had an elec­tion in 2022 and the turnout was 9,100 and the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader was con­test­ed.”

Fol­low­ing the par­ty’s April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion beat­ing by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, many PNM mem­bers had called for an in­ter­nal elec­tion as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, so the par­ty could re­vamp it­self go­ing for­ward. Mem­bers had al­so called on Cum­mings to re­sign in the wake of the de­feat, as they tar­get­ed him as one of the per­sons re­spon­si­ble for the par­ty’s demise.

De­spite this, Cum­mings re­tained his ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tion, re­ceiv­ing 4,122 votes in beat­ing con­tenders Roger Boynes (2,620) and To­va Lin Sandy (687).

The re­sults will be rat­i­fied at the par­ty’s con­ven­tion this week­end.


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