Po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor and poll­ster Dr Mwale Hen­ry says the es­ca­lat­ing in­ter­nal con­flict with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is ex­pos­ing a wider prob­lem of in­dis­ci­pline and lead­er­ship with­in the Op­po­si­tion par­ty.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Hen­ry said his as­sess­ment of the PNM’s han­dling of the dis­pute in­volv­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning was based sole­ly on the par­ty’s pub­lic state­ments and ac­tions, but ar­gued that the re­sponse so far raised se­ri­ous ques­tions.

The con­tro­ver­sy has in­ten­si­fied in re­cent days, with the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, in­clud­ing chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, re­sign­ing amid the pro­longed im­passe with Man­ning.

Man­ning has al­so come un­der sharp crit­i­cism from the PNM lead­er­ship over his de­ci­sion to pub­licly air al­le­ga­tions against par­ty mem­bers, with par­ty chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les warn­ing that dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion could fol­low. The par­ty has main­tained that an in­ter­nal com­mit­tee was es­tab­lished to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints sub­mit­ted by both Man­ning and Alex­is and that the Gen­er­al Coun­cil is ex­pect­ed to de­ter­mine its next course of ac­tion.

But Hen­ry ques­tioned why the PNM ini­tial­ly treat­ed Man­ning’s pub­lic state­ments with such ur­gency, ar­gu­ing that the coun­try was con­fronting sev­er­al ma­jor na­tion­al is­sues re­quir­ing the Op­po­si­tion’s at­ten­tion.

He said the in­ter­nal tur­moil could not be al­lowed to dis­tract po­lit­i­cal leader and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les from her wider re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to hold the Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able.

“What­ev­er in­ter­nal rum­blings that is hap­pen­ing with­in the PNM does not negate nor es­cape her sole re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Hen­ry said, ar­gu­ing that Beck­les must demon­strate her abil­i­ty to man­age both the par­ty and her con­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Hen­ry was al­so crit­i­cal of se­nior PNM of­fi­cials who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the par­ty’s re­cent me­dia con­fer­ence ad­dress­ing the Man­ning con­tro­ver­sy.

He ar­gued that some of their com­ments demon­strat­ed the same lack of dis­ci­pline for which Man­ning was be­ing crit­i­cised.

Hen­ry sin­gled out Gon­za­les and deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Amery Browne, con­tend­ing that their pub­lic com­ments were not suf­fi­cient­ly neu­tral.

Browne, he not­ed, had re­ferred to sug­ges­tions that Man­ning could be con­sid­ered a “rogue MP” and com­pared as­pects of the con­tro­ver­sy with the con­duct of a UNC mem­ber.

“If you have to ap­ply par­ty dis­ci­pline, it ap­plies to Robert Le Hunte, it ap­plies to Mr Man­ning, it ap­plies to Pa­tri­cia Alex­is,” Hen­ry said.

He ar­gued that dis­ci­pline must be ap­plied con­sis­tent­ly through­out an or­gan­i­sa­tion, warn­ing that “in­dis­ci­pline across the board, es­pe­cial­ly amongst its lead­ers, points to a lack of lead­er­ship.”

The PNM’s trou­bles have ex­pand­ed be­yond San Fer­nan­do East. For­mer sen­a­tor Joel Primus re­signed from the par­ty this week af­ter more than 25 years, say­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion had drift­ed away from the prin­ci­ples and val­ues that ini­tial­ly at­tract­ed him.

Hen­ry said the par­ty should al­so pay close at­ten­tion to its elec­toral per­for­mance, claim­ing the PNM suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant ero­sion of its tra­di­tion­al sup­port base in the last elec­tion.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, he said po­lit­i­cal par­ties and their lead­ers would be judged on per­for­mance rather than ex­pla­na­tions.

Us­ing a crick­et anal­o­gy, Hen­ry said mere­ly sur­viv­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly was not enough.

“It’s not enough to stay in the wick­et,” he said. “You’re re­quired to score runs, be­cause the so­ci­ety will even­tu­al­ly judge you harsh­ly and force you to re­tire.”