DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ad­dressed any doubts about her ca­pac­i­ty to lead the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the Low­er House, as­sert­ing that while her lead­er­ship may ap­pear un­der­stat­ed, it is firm­ly root­ed in ex­pe­ri­ence and un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to pub­lic ser­vice.

“Judge me not by the deci­bel of my voice but by the depth of my com­mit­ment and the strength of my con­vic­tion to lift every cit­i­zen high­er,” she told a gath­er­ing of PNM sup­port­ers.

She added: “Some may mis­take qui­et strength for weak­ness but I of­fer you firm re­solve, guid­ed by com­pas­sion and wis­dom, and un­der­pinned by ex­pe­ri­ence and bound­less faith in our des­tiny.”

Beck­les made his­to­ry yes­ter­day, be­com­ing the first woman to serve as PNM Op­po­si­tion Leader in the par­ty’s 70-year his­to­ry. She was of­fi­cial­ly in­stalled dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s.

In her maid­en speech, Beck­les wast­ed no time ad­dress­ing peo­ple’s con­cerns, re­it­er­at­ing her promise to be a con­struc­tive Op­po­si­tion Leader. She said the PNM will be a mod­el for young peo­ple and this na­tion’s fu­ture lead­ers, where col­lab­o­ra­tion is val­ued over con­fronta­tion.

Beck­les said the PNM will be pa­tri­ots in Par­lia­ment, will­ing to of­fer so­lu­tions, col­lab­o­rate on mat­ters of na­tion­al and re­gion­al im­por­tance and sup­port leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies that bring re­al progress and pros­per­i­ty.

“Let me be clear, it is not my con­vic­tion that op­po­si­tion means ob­struc­tion. True lead­er­ship is not nec­es­sar­i­ly loud, ag­gres­sive, or den­i­grat­ing. It is steady, thought­ful, and coura­geous. Our democ­ra­cy flour­ish­es not through di­vi­sive­ness but through ro­bust de­bate, shared pur­pose, and mu­tu­al re­spect,” she said.

“We will hold the Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able, yes, but al­ways with your best in­ter­est at heart. We will be vig­i­lant, ac­ces­si­ble, and re­spon­sive as we pro­vide con­struc­tive scruti­ny, ad­vo­cate for poli­cies that re­flect your as­pi­ra­tions, and stand firm against in­jus­tice, in­equal­i­ty, mal­ice, nepo­tism and cor­rup­tion, should the need arise,” she added.

For peo­ple count­ing the PNM out of the po­lit­i­cal scene, Beck­les said they were sad­ly mis­tak­en. She ex­pects “the in­evitable swing of the po­lit­i­cal pen­du­lum” and she as­sured “the PNM will be ready” to re­turn to of­fice.

She al­so said there will be no hon­ey­moon pe­ri­od grant­ed to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment, as she’s prepar­ing for the re­turn of Par­lia­ment and a mid-term re­view.

“The truth is it’s about man­age­ment of the econ­o­my,” she said, as she’s wait­ing to see how Gov­ern­ment will ful­fill its cam­paign promis­es.

While she said she will sup­port good leg­is­la­tion, she in­di­cat­ed she was against scrap­ping the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA), as in­di­cat­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

High­light­ing the im­por­tance of youth in shap­ing the na­tion’s fu­ture, Beck­les vowed to ad­vo­cate for poli­cies that em­pow­er young peo­ple, en­sur­ing they have op­por­tu­ni­ties to learn, grow, and con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to so­ci­ety. She al­so com­mit­ted to pri­ori­tis­ing the needs of vul­ner­a­ble and mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties, en­sur­ing their strug­gles are ad­dressed and their voic­es heard.

While some mem­bers of the pub­lic have ac­cused the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion of be­ing ar­ro­gant, Beck­les said she’s been told by mem­bers of the pub­lic that they re­quire a dif­fer­ent tone from the pre­vi­ous UNC op­po­si­tion.

In an in­ter­view af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny with the me­dia, she said she felt en­er­gised and ex­cit­ed to de­liv­er. More im­por­tant­ly, she in­tends to con­duct a post-mortem on the PNM’s per­for­mance at the polls, as she not­ed the par­ty lost over 100,000 votes when com­pared to 2020 and 2015.

“I think we need to lis­ten more. I am a mem­ber of par­lia­ment. I heard it on the ground, some of the con­cerns. The con­stituen­cy of Ari­ma did not hes­i­tate to tell me what the con­cerns were. So that, I think that we have to do a post-mortem. I think that I am look­ing very close­ly to go in to vis­it all the con­stituen­cies to get an idea,” she said.

She said she plans to vis­it all con­stituen­cies in­clud­ing UNC strong­holds.

She al­so said she has not yet de­cid­ed on the com­po­si­tion of the par­ty’s sen­a­tors. Not­ing she has just six picks, she said she will in­clude a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for To­ba­go apart from ex­pe­ri­enced in­di­vid­u­als with con­sid­er­a­tion for new­er ones.

All 12 PNM MPs were present for the his­toric oc­ca­sion, joined by PNM stal­wart Joan Yuille-Williams, for­mer UNC Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, and chief of the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Ri­car­do Bharath Her­nan­dez.