Fol­low­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) de­feat in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the par­ty's gen­er­al sec­re­tary has pub­licly stat­ed that he was not con­sult­ed on, nor did he ap­prove of, the strat­e­gy that led to the loss.

In the elec­tion, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), in al­liance with the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, se­cured 26 out of 41 seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, form­ing a ma­jor­i­ty gov­ern­ment. The PNM won 13 seats, while the To­ba­go Peo­ple's Par­ty claimed the re­main­ing two seats.

“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 stat­ed in a re­lease is­sued to­day.

He af­firmed his con­tin­ued loy­al­ty to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and to the PNM, “the par­ty found­ed by Dr. Er­ic Williams, the re­silient Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.”

Amid in­ter­nal dis­cus­sions and pub­lic com­men­tary and calls for him to step down, Cum­mings ad­dressed calls for new lead­er­ship with­in the par­ty. He said those who wish to chal­lenge him are free to con­test the po­si­tion at the up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions, which will take place in ad­vance of the par­ty’s An­nu­al Con­ven­tion.

“In due course I will have more to say on this mat­ter but as Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary my first re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to the par­ty, the mem­ber­ship and the of­fice that I hold,” he said.

He al­so re­spond­ed to what he de­scribed as per­son­al at­tacks on him­self and oth­er par­ty lead­ers. “I refuse to pub­licly en­gage those who have been re­cruit­ed to at­tack me and oth­er par­ty lead­ers per­son­al­ly in the hope that they can shift the blame and that their spon­sors could pos­si­bly take con­trol once more.”

He voiced firm sup­port for Pen­ne­lope Beck­les as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and as the next Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PNM. “My de­ci­sion in this re­gard is un­shak­en notwith­stand­ing these at­tacks,” the state­ment read.

The gen­er­al sec­re­tary con­clud­ed by urg­ing par­ty mem­bers to unite. “I call on all par­ty mem­bers to work to­geth­er to re­build this great par­ty and to con­tin­ue in ser­vice to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”