An­na-Lisa Paul

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore and the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee has un­til to­mor­row to re­spond to a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter from Fuad Abu Bakr, who is chal­leng­ing their de­ci­sion to in­def­i­nite­ly post­pone the tri­en­ni­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions due to COVID-19.

In­di­cat­ing his readi­ness for court, Bakr, of West­ern Stars Phil­har­mon­ic Steel Or­ches­tra, yes­ter­day said the de­ci­sion by the Ram­sey-Moore ex­ec­u­tive was il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

Pan Trin­ba­go’s con­ven­tion and an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due this year, but Ram­sey-Moore yes­ter­day ex­plained there are two is­sues af­fect­ing this process — the un­will­ing­ness by mem­bers to be­come vac­ci­nat­ed against the virus and the re­luc­tance by many to utilise such plat­forms as Zoom to con­duct an elec­tion.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing in Wood­brook yes­ter­day, Ram­sey-Moore said, “This ex­ec­u­tive will not bow or cow­er to rogue el­e­ments in the pan move­ment.”

She added, “We are as strong as our mem­ber­ship. They are the ones who have em­pow­ered us to be here to­day and based on our con­sti­tu­tion, we are go­ing to pro­ceed with the busi­ness of this or­gan­i­sa­tion as we were elect­ed to do in 2018.”

Giv­en the present cir­cum­stances, she said it could not be busi­ness as usu­al.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion’s con­sti­tu­tion man­dates that ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions be held be­tween Sep­tem­ber 1 and Oc­to­ber 31 every three years.

Ram­sey-Moore said, “Our con­sti­tu­tion re­quires per­son­al at­ten­dance and ac­cord­ing to the con­sti­tu­tion, our con­ven­tion is a meet­ing that must be con­vened and af­ter we have re­ceived a quo­rum of 60 per cent, that is the on­ly way we can pro­ceed.”

Ges­tur­ing to Bakr and his fel­low cam­paign­ers as they stood on the pave­ment locked out­side the New­town Play­boyz Steel Sym­pho­ny Pan The­ater on Tra­garete Road, Wood­brook, Ram­sey-Moore said the de­ci­sion to post­pone the elec­tion had cre­at­ed, “some kind of anx­i­ety and strange be­hav­iours to take place” among some fac­tions.

Reaf­firm­ing her ex­ec­u­tive’s readi­ness for elec­tion when­ev­er it is held, Ram­sey-Moore said while COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions do not cur­rent­ly per­mit large gath­er­ings, her ex­ec­u­tive was ready to ac­count to the mem­ber­ship for the work they had over the past three years.

She de­nied they had ever seen the likes of $30 mil­lion plus, as a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing signed by the pre­vi­ous ex­ec­u­tive, which was led by Kei­th Di­az, had seen the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) re­tain­ing full fi­nan­cial con­trol of Pan Trin­ba­go un­til Au­gust 2021.

She ar­gued, “It is im­por­tant that this ex­ec­u­tive be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to hold a con­ven­tion as we know it.”

Say­ing the ex­ec­u­tive had met with bands in small num­bers through­out both is­lands, Ram­sey-Moore said based on based on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived, they want a phys­i­cal con­ven­tion.

“They have told us clear­ly that they do not want a Zoom meet­ing.”

She added, “We have been hav­ing chal­lenges even meet­ing with mem­bers, even by send­ing emails. None of our re­gions have held Zoom meet­ings.”

She at­trib­uted this to, “the dif­fi­cul­ty with which our mem­bers have op­er­at­ing on­line plat­forms.”

Say­ing this was not just one elec­tion where one could line up and vote, she said the nor­mal con­ven­tion usu­al­ly last­ed for be­tween five and six hours be­fore fi­nan­cial mem­bers are al­lowed to vote by se­cret bal­lot.

Ram­sey-Moore said the de­ci­sion told hold off the con­ven­tion was tak­en in the best in­ter­est of the mem­bers - of which 70 per cent of mem­bers through­out the re­gions had signed and af­fixed their band stamps to an en­dorse­ment doc­u­ment, sup­port­ing the de­ci­sion to post­pone the elec­tion.

Re­spond­ing im­me­di­ate­ly, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer for the Bakr-led slate Pan Mov­ing For­ward, Mau­rice Alexan­der, stressed, “The prob­lem is the il­le­gal post­pone­ment of the elec­tion. The ex­ec­u­tive present­ly does not have that au­thor­i­ty do so.”

He ac­cused the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive of flout­ing Pan Trin­ba­go’s con­sti­tu­tion and dis­re­spect­ing the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship.

Point­ing to the po­lice of­fi­cers who had been called to re­move them, Alexan­der said it was a sad day that democ­ra­cy and good sense was not al­lowed to pre­vail.

Asked if he agreed with the rea­sons out­lined for the post­pone­ment by Ram­sey-Moore, he said, “The pan move­ment in this coun­try is some­thing like 500 bands and to come to that con­clu­sion and get sup­port for it, they have cher­ry picked who they want to sup­port that il­le­gal ac­tion.”