GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

De­spite Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les' warn­ing that pub­lic ex­changes of al­le­ga­tions and counter-al­le­ga­tions would not re­solve the is­sues fac­ing the par­ty's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive last night is­sued a sharply word­ed state­ment crit­i­cis­ing MP Bri­an Man­ning, in­clud­ing on his per­for­mance as the area's rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

The ex­ec­u­tive, head­ed by Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, al­so in­voked the lega­cy of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

"The late Hon. Patrick Man­ning's lega­cy was earned through dis­ci­pline, ser­vice, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and per­for­mance. That lega­cy can­not be re­duced to a sur­name, nor can it be used as a shield against ac­count­abil­i­ty. Her­itage isn't a sub­sti­tute for lead­er­ship," the state­ment said.

The dis­pute sur­faced in June when Man­ning wrote to the PNM lead­er­ship out­lin­ing con­cerns raised by mem­bers about con­stituen­cy mat­ters, many of them in­volv­ing Alex­is. The is­sues were sub­se­quent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed by a par­ty-ap­point­ed team, which sub­mit­ted a re­port. The par­ty has since in­di­cat­ed that ac­tion is be­ing tak­en on its rec­om­men­da­tions.

On Tues­day, Man­ning is­sued a state­ment ex­press­ing con­cerns about the con­duct of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. When the state­ment was post­ed in the San Fer­nan­do East group chat, a no­tice in­di­cat­ed it had been delet­ed by Alex­is.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, Gon­za­les urged par­ty mem­bers to avoid pub­licly air­ing al­le­ga­tions and counter-al­le­ga­tions.

How­ev­er, at about 7.30 pm, the San Fer­nan­do East Face­book page car­ried a state­ment from the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive re­spond­ing di­rect­ly to Man­ning's re­marks.

The ex­ec­u­tive said it would or­di­nar­i­ly re­frain from pub­licly dis­cussing mat­ters be­fore the PNM's in­ter­nal struc­tures.

"How­ev­er, Mr Man­ning's de­ci­sion to name an ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, re­peat dam­ag­ing al­le­ga­tions and in­vite a pub­lic tri­al of mat­ters al­ready be­fore the par­ty re­quires a firm re­sponse," the state­ment said.

"De­spite the ac­cu­sa­tions and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions di­rect­ed against con­stituen­cy chair­man Mrs Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, she has ex­er­cised re­straint, sub­mit­ted her­self to the par­ty's process­es and al­lowed its lead­er­ship to con­duct its in­ves­ti­ga­tions with­out at­tempt­ing to in­flu­ence the out­come through the me­dia."

The state­ment out­lined the steps tak­en by the PNM to ad­dress the mat­ter and ar­gued that Man­ning's crit­i­cism of the process was mis­placed.

"Mr Man­ning may pre­fer a process de­signed ac­cord­ing to his own con­di­tions, but per­son­al pref­er­ence isn't proof of un­fair­ness. He can­not de­mand due process while pub­licly un­der­min­ing that process be­cause it isn't pro­ceed­ing ex­clu­sive­ly on his terms."

The ex­ec­u­tive al­so ex­pressed con­cern over what it de­scribed as Man­ning's "de­ci­sion to re­cy­cle po­lit­i­cal al­le­ga­tions pre­vi­ous­ly ad­vanced by UNC mem­bers which have nev­er been es­tab­lished by any find­ing placed in the pub­lic do­main and use them to bring the in­tegri­ty of a fel­low PNM mem­ber in­to ques­tion."

"That is dan­ger­ous and pro­found­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble. A dis­claimer can­not erase the rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age caused by cal­cu­lat­ed in­nu­en­do. The wider record must al­so be re­mem­bered," the state­ment added.

The ex­ec­u­tive not­ed that in 2024, a ma­jor­i­ty of par­ty groups and con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers backed Man­ning's can­di­da­cy for the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

"The same ex­ec­u­tive whose sup­port was wel­comed when it se­cured his nom­i­na­tion can­not sud­den­ly be­come un­trust­wor­thy be­cause it re­fus­es to sur­ren­der its in­de­pen­dence," it stat­ed.

The state­ment al­so high­light­ed Man­ning's elec­toral per­for­mance, not­ing that the PNM won San Fer­nan­do East by 5,173 votes in 2020, but that ma­jor­i­ty fell to 673 votes af­ter a re­count in the 2025 elec­tion.

"While the na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment can­not be ig­nored, nei­ther can Mr Man­ning avoid ex­am­in­ing his own rep­re­sen­ta­tion, po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship and abil­i­ty to re­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence," the ex­ec­u­tive said.

"A leader con­front­ed by that lev­el of elec­toral de­cline should be­gin with in­tro­spec­tion, not scape­goat­ing the vol­un­teers and of­fi­cers who helped him re­tain his seat.

"Mr Man­ning now speaks loud­ly about democ­ra­cy. We there­fore ask: why does he ap­pear so fear­ful of al­low­ing the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es of the par­ty and the judge­ment of the mem­ber­ship to take their course? Is the re­al con­cern that, with­out the sup­port of the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive he now at­tacks, his own po­lit­i­cal stand­ing may be con­sid­er­ably less se­cure than he wish­es to ad­mit?"

The ex­ec­u­tive said it had co-op­er­at­ed ful­ly with the par­ty's lead­er­ship and would con­tin­ue to re­spect its process­es.

"What we will not ac­cept is the use of mis­chie­vous po­lit­i­cal al­le­ga­tions to dis­cred­it our mem­bers or di­vert at­ten­tion from fail­ures of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and lead­er­ship. San Fer­nan­do East is greater than any one of­fice­hold­er, per­son­al­i­ty or sur­name."

Alex­is did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia's queries re­gard­ing the state­ment, in­clud­ing ques­tions about which ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers au­tho­rised or ap­proved its re­lease.

Man­ning com­ment­ed briefly on the is­sue yes­ter­day but did not re­spond specif­i­cal­ly to ei­ther Gon­za­les' state­ment or the ex­ec­u­tive's re­sponse.

Mean­while, his sup­port­ers claimed that a vote of no con­fi­dence against him had failed and al­leged that the state­ment was sub­se­quent­ly is­sued uni­lat­er­al­ly.