Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) new chair­man fol­low­ing Sun­day’s in­ter­nal elec­tion, which was won by the One PNM slate led by the par­ty’s first fe­male po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

Sen­a­tors Fos­ter Cum­mings and Faris Al-Rawi al­so re­tained the posts of gen­er­al sec­re­tary and pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer.

The One PNM’s vic­to­ry was of­fi­cial­ly de­clared yes­ter­day when the par­ty’s Elec­tions Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee re­leased the re­sults of the one-day elec­tion in which 102,300 mem­bers were el­i­gi­ble to vote. How­ev­er, less than 10,000 mem­bers ac­tu­al­ly vot­ed.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the ESC said, “At the close of the poll, the ESC con­firmed the par­tic­i­pa­tion of over 7,000 mem­bers in this year’s in­ter­nal elec­tion. Due to the num­ber of votes cast, the bal­lot count­ing ex­er­cise con­tin­ued well in­to the ear­ly hours of (yes­ter­day).”

In the PNM’s 2022 in­ter­nal elec­tion—when el­i­gi­ble mem­bers were around 101,000—the num­ber of peo­ple who vot­ed in that three-day polling ex­er­cise was 9,903.

Beck­les was elect­ed un­op­posed as po­lit­i­cal leader when nom­i­na­tions closed on June 2. The One PNM team con­test­ed 14 of the 15 posts.

In­cum­bent wel­fare of­fi­cer Max­ine Richards, who con­test­ed as an in­de­pen­dent can­di­date, re­tained the post. She was the on­ly one of the 30 in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates who won. The One PNM slate did not put up a can­di­date for the wel­fare of­fi­cer po­si­tion.

The Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons team did not win any of the posts up for grabs.

Cou­va busi­ness­man Nal Ram­s­ingh, who con­test­ed the post of trea­sur­er for the One PNM team, ob­tained the high­est num­ber of votes—5,555.

Elec­tions of­fi­cer In­dar Paras­ram, who re­tained the post with 3,441 bal­lots, re­ceived the low­est num­ber of votes.

One PNM’s Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly de­feat­ed for­mer min­is­ter Don­na Cox for the post of la­dy vice chair­man.

Boynes: Scan­dalous event

For­mer To­co/Man­zanil­la MP and min­is­ter of sport un­der the Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion, Roger Boynes, wrote the ESC yes­ter­day say­ing he had no com­mu­ni­ca­tion on the sta­tus of the count and the polls were un­der se­ri­ous scruti­ny, “giv­en the ab­ject ab­sence of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, re­port­ing, and shar­ing of in­for­ma­tion.”

He was de­feat­ed by Cum­mings for the gen­er­al sec­re­tary post.

“Ini­tial re­ports com­ing to me are that sev­er­al in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates were suc­cess­ful in over 30 con­stituen­cies, how­ev­er, in Laven­tille/West, Ari­ma and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, the One PNM slate is in the lead. It is note­wor­thy that a vast num­ber of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties have oc­curred in these said polling sta­tions. This fact, com­bined with what can on­ly be de­scribed as in­com­pe­tence on the part of the ESC, specif­i­cal­ly as it re­lates to the fail­ure to (1) re­port to the can­di­dates in a sit­u­a­tion where more than 14 hours have elapsed since the com­mence­ment of count­ing, and (2) an­nounce the means by which bal­lot box­es are to change hands in these cir­cum­stances, have the ef­fect of caus­ing the po­ten­tial for se­ri­ous scruti­ny to say the least.”

Boynes, an at­tor­ney, added, “Suf­fice it to say, I’m con­sid­er­ing all op­tions cur­rent­ly open to me, to be ex­er­cised in the best in­ter­est of the PNM in a sit­u­a­tion that has turned out to be a scan­dalous event con­duct­ed in plain sight of the pub­lic bring­ing the par­ty, not on­ly in­to odi­um, but caus­ing even fur­ther ques­tions to be raised about the in­tegri­ty of cer­tain play­ers.”

In­de­pen­dent can­di­date, at­tor­ney San­jiv Bood­hu, who un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the post of elec­tions of­fi­cer, con­grat­u­lat­ed Beck­les and the One PNM slate.

Bood­hu said, “As a mem­ber of the PNM, I look for­ward to what has com­mon­ly been la­belled the “re­build­ing” process.”

Out­go­ing in­ter­im vice-chair­man Colm Im­bert, in a so­cial me­dia post, yes­ter­day de­scribed the re­sults as a “con­clu­sive man­date.” He hoped “the anony­mous, face­less mis­chief mak­ers and their prox­ies who spent the last month bash­ing Pen­ny Beck­les and her team will now dis­ap­pear.”

PNM IN­TER­NAL ELEC­TION RE­SULTS

CHAIR­MAN

- Mar­vin Gon­za­les - 4,392

- Chin­ua Al­leyne - 2,401

- Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai - 422

VICE-CHAIR­MAN

- Dr Amery Browne - 4,469

- Paula Gopee Scoon - 2,427

- Muhammed Yunus Ibrahim - 333

- Esau Mo­hammed - 187

LA­DY VICE-CHAIR­MAN

- Dr Nyan Gads­by- Dol­ly - 4,454

- Don­na Cox - 2,912

GEN­ER­AL SEC­RE­TARY

- Fos­ter Cum­mings - 4,122

- Roger Boynes - 2,620

- To­va Lin Sandy - 687

AS­SIS­TANT GEN­ER­AL SEC­RE­TARY

- Pa­tri­cia Alex­is - 4,565

- Ma­li­ka Blair - 2,736

TREA­SUR­ER

- Nal Ram­s­ingh - 5,555

- An­tho­ny Davis - 1,670

ED­U­CA­TION OF­FI­CER

- Dr Je­lani Reid - 4,394

- Dr Hi­lary Bernard - 1,925

- Clay­ton Black­man - 558

- Cur­tis Tou­s­saint - 451

PRO

- Faris Al-Rawi - 5,045

- Lisette Weekes - 1,538

- Christo­pher George - 722

SO­CIAL ME­DIA OF­FI­CER

- Symon De No­bri­ga - 3,769

- Do­minic Ro­main - 2,833

- Shawn Dube - 388

- Runako Williams - 273

- Krys­tale Hor­wood - 149

ELEC­TIONS OF­FI­CER

- In­dar Paras­ram - 3,441

- San­jiv Bood­hu - 2,048

- Ter­rence Beepath - 815

- Leslie Lynch - 743

FIELD OF­FI­CER

- Cur­tis Shade - 3,674

- Richard Thomp­son - 1,880

- Ny­ron Bayne - 787

- Er­ic Hop­kins II - 642

WEL­FARE OF­FI­CER

- Max­ine Richards - 4,979

- Ali­cia Leg­ere - 1,861

YOUTH OF­FI­CER

- Ka­reem Mar­celle - 4,871

- Aben Phillips- Brooks - 2,065

- Josi­mar James - 392

OP­ER­A­TIONS OF­FI­CER

- Irene Hinds - 5,010

- Eber Steele-At­tong - 1,182

- Stern Barnes - 1,058

LABOUR RE­LA­TIONS OF­FI­CER

- Ken­neth De­o­raj - 3,688

- An­drew Alves - 1,588

- St. Clair O’Neil - 752

- Natasha Mo­hammed - 458

- David Taitt - 406

- Wayne Gransam - 288