Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Amid deep­en­ing di­vi­sion in the op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), the par­ty’s lead­er­ship meets on Mon­day to rec­om­mend a date for the in­ter­nal elec­tions. The meet­ing comes af­ter gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings yes­ter­day dis­tanced him­self from de­ci­sions made by the par­ty’s for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader and lead­er­ship, which he said moved the par­ty from “Gov­ern­ment to Op­po­si­tion.” He al­so vowed to say more on the mat­ter “in due course.”

On Thurs­day, a PNM group called the Change­mak­ers called for Cum­mings to go. It al­so chal­lenged the re­sults of Tues­day’s spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil, which saw Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Colm Im­bert be­ing elect­ed as chair­man and vice chair­man. The Change­mak­ers al­leged there were ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and called for an au­dit of the PNM’s mem­ber­ship list be­fore any fu­ture elec­tion.

How­ev­er, tak­ing to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, Cum­mings said giv­en the in­for­ma­tion cir­cu­lat­ing in the pub­lic do­main, he want­ed to make it clear he did not sup­port de­ci­sions made by the for­mer lead­er­ship.

“I wish to state that I was not con­sult­ed and I cer­tain­ly did not ap­prove of the strat­e­gy en­gaged by those who took us from Gov­ern­ment to Op­po­si­tion in fur­ther­ance of their agen­da,” he said.

While he did not give any names, it is be­lieved Cum­mings was re­fer­ring to for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who was the face of the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign.

Re­fer­ring to calls for him to go, Cum­mings added: “If to­day their name­less and face­less sup­port­ers wish for change in the of­fice I hold for the mo­ment, they are all free to of­fer them­selves at the in­ter­nal elec­tions which will be held soon as we move to­wards our an­nu­al con­ven­tion.”

Cum­mings added that he re­fused to en­gage with peo­ple “re­cruit­ed to at­tack” him and oth­er par­ty lead­ers in a bid to “pos­si­bly take con­trol once more.”

He made it clear he “proud­ly” sup­ports Pen­ne­lope Beck­les as Op­po­si­tion Leader and the next po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.

Gads­by-Dol­ly al­so re­spond­ed to the Change­mak­ers yes­ter­day. In her state­ment, she said the PNM has re­bound­ed from elec­tion loss­es be­fore and as­sured sup­port­ers that re­cov­ery was sure.

How­ev­er, she took aim at de­trac­tors, who she said “seem to be­lieve the PNM will be dis­tract­ed from the re­build­ing process by name­less, face­less, base­less, cow­ard­ly calls for res­ig­na­tions, au­dits etc...”

“You will be well ad­vised to take your vit­ri­ol else­where—the PNM has be­gun its re­build­ing process, and our fo­cus and re­solve will not be shak­en,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

“Pay our po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents no mind; and close­ly ex­am­ine the horns of all who claim to love the PNM.”

Yes­ter­day, for­mer PNM of­fi­cial Robert Le Hunte said Op­po­si­tion Leader Beck­les will have his full su­port if she puts her­self up for par­ty leader, as he ex­pects she will, adding he’s open af­ter dis­cus­sion with her and oth­er lead­er­ship of­fi­cials to help re­build the PNM.

More ac­cu­sa­tions

How­ev­er, the Change­mak­ers is­sued two more state­ments yes­ter­day in re­sponse to Cum­mings and the PNM chair­man.

It said, “We’re not a fac­tion or a slate. We are a reck­on­ing, a grow­ing na­tion­al con­scious­ness — a move­ment formed in the si­lence of 100,000 ab­sten­tions, birthed in the be­tray­al felt by thou­sands who watched our par­ty drift from its found­ing val­ues.

“We’ve watched the si­lenc­ing of good voic­es in the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, and the rise of unchecked am­bi­tion fund­ed by state priv­i­lege. While key of­fi­cials en­riched them­selves — 26 HDC con­tracts, mil­lions owed and un­ex­plained, ar­ro­gance mas­querad­ing as lead­er­ship — the peo­ple and the par­ty suf­fered.”

Cur­rent PNM ex­ec­u­tives claimed the group com­pris­es cur­rent and past per­son­al­i­ties, in­clud­ing MPs.

The Change­mak­ers al­so claimed Gads­by-Dol­ly’s elec­tion was “null and void.”

Pre­sent­ing doc­u­ments, the group claimed Dr Amery Browne vot­ed as a leg­isla­tive coun­cil del­e­gate at the re­cent spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil.

“How­ev­er, he isn’t a Sen­a­tor, MP, nor does he hold any elect­ed or ap­point­ed po­si­tion with­in the PNM that qual­i­fies him as a leg­isla­tive del­e­gate. His vote was il­le­gal.

“Roger Mon­roe, de­feat­ed To­co/San­gre Grande can­di­date, cast a vote in the place of the late Hon Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, the du­ly ap­point­ed leg­isla­tive del­e­gate to the Gen­er­al Coun­cil. There was no for­mal meet­ing, no no­tice, and no reap­point­ment by the Leg­isla­tive Cau­cus,” it al­leged.

Yes­ter­day, for­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford said Cum­mings’ re­fusal to re­sign isn’t in keep­ing with the par­ty’s cus­toms.

“In 2010 when we lost the elec­tions to the same UNC, the chair­man of the par­ty Con­rad Enill re­signed, he wasn’t a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. Mar­tin Joseph re­signed he was gen­er­al sec­re­tary and (Patrick) Man­ning re­signed... I have no prob­lem with Fos­ter but as a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, he should step down.”

Fol­low­ing April 28 de­feat, both PNM chair­man Stu­art Young and cam­paign man­ag­er Ro­han Sinanan re­signed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

PNM found­ing mem­ber Fer­die Fer­reira be­lieves Cum­mings may not be en­tire­ly ly­ing when he says he was not part of the cam­paign’s de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

“The gen­er­al sec­re­tary is the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the par­ty. He is the per­son re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing that the par­ty’s elec­tion ma­chin­ery is prop­er­ly lu­bri­cat­ed and on good foot­ing, but it may be part­ly true. The prob­lem start­ed with Row­ley hold­ing on to po­lit­i­cal leader po­si­tion and pass­ing the prime min­is­ter­ship, so he has Stu­art on a leash.”

Pen­ny’s pos­si­ble picks

Mean­while, PNM of­fi­cials said Sen­ate ap­point­ments will like­ly in­clude for­mer min­is­ters Dr Amery Browne, Has­sel Bac­chus, de­feat­ed can­di­dates Faris Al-Rawi and Fos­ter Cum­mings and PNM re­search of­fi­cer Vi­ash Nand­lal. - With Re­port­ing by Kay-Marie Fletch­er