There is fresh controversy in the Laventille West constituency, as there are now claims that the People’s National Movement’s Youth League’s meeting to select its preferred candidate for the next general election was yesterday hijacked by members of Fitzgerald Hinds’ constituency executive and parliamentary office.
This follows issues coming out of the constituency’s Women’s League’s contentious meeting last Monday that had only one person supporting the incumbent.
A clip of the meeting was posted to social media, which showed that the question over who is in support of Hinds had to be asked three times before one person raised their hand.
A new meeting for the Women’s League to endorse a candidate has been set for Thursday, after complaints that the previous meeting had irregularities.
There were claims that some members of the Women’s League were not allowed to vote, while others said they were not aware of the meeting at all.
Confirmation of the new date came from the head of the PNM’s Women’s League for that constituency, Adanna Griffith-Gordon.
She did not, however, respond to follow-up questions from Guardian Media asking if the meeting was well advertised to avoid a recurrence of the issues that allegedly plagued last Monday’s session.
Guardian Media reached out to the constituency’s chairman Richard Walcott, who said, “The Women’s League is taking charge of that, it has been advertised and I don’t foresee any problems.”
However, yesterday, a new controversy came, this time from the Youth League’s meeting.
Sources told Guardian Media that the meeting ended with a vote count of 18 in favour of Hinds while 14 gave their nod to Kareem Marcelle, the main rival to his candidacy.
But Guardian Media understands people loyal to Hinds allegedly “took over” the meeting, contrary to the Youth League’s constitution. There were allegations that Hinds’ office staff chaired the meeting and the constituency’s PRO, who is not a member of the youth league, chaired the meeting, usurping the actual Youth League chair.
Furthermore, it was alleged that while the meeting was advertised for the Marcella Street Community Centre at 4.10 pm, a few young people perceived to be supporters of Marcelle were locked out.
Sources also said Hinds’ parliamentary office manager was on site to “control” the registration process for yesterday’s event.
When Guardian Media reached out to Walcott for a response on this development, he said, “ I don’t know anything about that, I cannot help you with that. I have not been briefed about that. So I am not aware of it.”
Questions were also sent to Fitzgerald Hinds but he did not respond.
When Guardian Media contacted Marcelle, he said he was unaware of what transpired and therefore had no comment. He, however, said he will respect whatever is the will of the people in charge of the nomination process.
