KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Less than a week af­ter their po­si­tions as deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers were re­voked by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Colm Im­bert were ap­point­ed as chair­man and vice chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Their ap­point­ments fol­low a se­ries of res­ig­na­tions, in­clud­ing that of Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) Stu­art Young as chair­man and Ro­han Sinanan as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader last Wednes­day, which re­duced the par­ty’s lead­er­ship to on­ly three ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.

Af­ter a spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil ses­sion held yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly de­feat­ed Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne re­ceiv­ing 60-58 votes for the po­si­tion of chair­man. Im­bert was un­op­posed. There were four spoiled bal­lots.

How­ev­er, these po­si­tions are on­ly in­ter­im un­til the par­ty holds its in­ter­nal elec­tion ex­pect­ed to take place with­in the next few weeks.

Gads­by-Dol­ly and Im­bert re­joined gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, la­dy vice chair Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and head of the To­ba­go arm of the PNM An­cil Den­nis to form the par­ty’s core ex­ec­u­tive team.

Speak­ing to the me­dia im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the se­cret bal­lot elec­tion, Gads­by-Dol­ly and Im­bert were pleased to have been se­lect­ed as the par­ty goes through a “tran­si­tion.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “I want to thank the Gen­er­al Coun­cil for the con­fi­dence re­posed in me to serve as the chair­man dur­ing this very crit­i­cal time in the PNM’s tran­si­tion, as we look for­ward to­wards the or­gan­i­sa­tion of our in­ter­nal elec­tion where we will fill the po­lit­i­cal leader po­si­tion that is very crit­i­cal to be filled as we move in­to Op­po­si­tion and or­gan­ise our­selves to be the for­mi­da­ble Op­po­si­tion that we ex­pect to be as we wait to as­sume our po­si­tion as the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

With both a fe­male Op­po­si­tion Leader and chair­man, Gads­by-Dol­ly said it was re­fresh­ing to see women tak­ing their place, not­ing pol­i­tics has al­ways been a male-dom­i­nat­ed ca­reer. How­ev­er, she said it re­al­ly comes down to hard work and com­mit­ment, as gen­der is not the de­ter­min­ing fac­tor.

At­tempts to con­tact Dr Row­ley on the re­sults were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, Gads­by-Dol­ly be­lieves Row­ley would be proud of her el­e­va­tion.

“I think Dr Row­ley has pre­pared his young peo­ple. He called us his young peo­ple. Ten years ago, he took us and gave us re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and I think Dr Row­ley is go­ing to be very proud of the fact that he has raised a cadre of lead­ers that can take their right­ful place now that he has moved on to the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the par­ty, the lead­er­ship of the par­ty and I think that is very im­por­tant and I think that he would be very proud of us,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

As PNM’s longest-serv­ing MP, Im­bert al­so said he be­lieves it was time for young, fresh faces to lead the par­ty go­ing for­ward.

Im­bert said, “We didn’t think it was a good idea to have just three peo­ple giv­en that bur­den, that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to man­age the process go­ing for­ward. Now we have five ... I did not go for the po­si­tion of chair­man be­cause I felt like it is time for the younger peo­ple in the par­ty to come for­ward and I will not be con­test­ing a po­si­tion in the next in­ter­nal elec­tion.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to Young—who was not part of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil—for com­ment on the re­sults but he did not re­spond to calls or mes­sages.