Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MPs who didn’t sign the en­dorse­ment let­ter for En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to suc­ceed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, have as­sured they will sign even­tu­al­ly—but they first want to hear the views from the gen­er­al coun­cil mem­bers on the se­lec­tion is­sue at the par­ty’s Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters to­day.

And some PN­Mites who are con­cerned about the process used to de­cide on a suc­ces­sor, have a mo­tion in the works for de­bate at to­day’s coun­cil ses­sion, propos­ing that Row­ley step down im­me­di­ate­ly as leader—but re­main as Prime Min­is­ter—and for the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion to be held by March 31 rather than Sep­tem­ber, top PNM sources said yes­ter­day.

This, af­ter Thurs­day’s cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing which de­ferred all busi­ness con­cern­ing the lead­er­ship/suc­ces­sor­ship is­sues to to­day’s gen­er­al coun­cil.

To­day’s meet­ing brings to a head sim­mer­ing heat in the Gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the re­cent par­lia­men­tary cau­cus in To­ba­go where—fol­low­ing Row­ley’s re­cent re­tire­ment an­nounce­ment—Young re­ceived votes from 11 MPs to suc­ceed Row­ley when he re­signs ahead. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les re­ceived nine.

In the cau­cus dis­cus­sions, Young and Beck­les had ex­pressed will­ing­ness to lead while MPs Faris Al-Rawi and Fos­ter Cum­mings agreed to stand down from the in­ter­im lead­er­ship po­si­tion un­til con­ven­tion, it’s un­der­stood.

The se­lec­tion process re­sult­ing in Young—who’s been ap­point­ed to act as PM since last Ju­ly when­ev­er Row­ley was over­seas—be­ing se­lect­ed, raised con­tention among some PN­Mites, in­clud­ing in its ex­ec­u­tive and among cer­tain MPs.

Ar­gu­ments in­clude that Row­ley, who has been a democ­ra­cy ad­vo­cate, “went against” that with a se­lec­tion process where the mem­bers had no say.

Sub­se­quent­ly, the nine MPs who vot­ed for Beck­les didn’t sign a re­cent en­dorse­ment let­ter for Young’s name to be sent to the Pres­i­dent as the prime min­is­te­r­i­al choice when Row­ley steps down. It was ex­pect­ed they would have, as agreed in To­ba­go.

Par­ty sources not­ed that since the se­lec­tion of Young as his suc­ces­sor, Row­ley has been ex­press­ing his con­fu­sion over the mat­ter and sur­prise at the ap­par­ent mis­chief-mak­ing with­in the par­ty.

Af­ter Thurs­day’s short cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House, PNM sources said a meet­ing of the par­ty’s Par­lia­men­tary cau­cus of MPs was al­so held there with Row­ley.

This fo­cused on the en­dorse­ment let­ter and the non-sign­ing—and af­ter the PM spoke, re­spons­es from cer­tain very se­nior to new­com­er MPs were re­port­ed­ly “bru­tal, force­ful and al­most tear­ful,” where one ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber/MP was con­cerned. MPs were de­scribed as “vig­or­ous­ly” seek­ing to re­in­force their prin­ci­ples re­gard­ing se­lec­tion process­es.

How­ev­er, sources said ar­gu­ments in favour of sign­ing al­so came from Gov­ern­ment House leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds.

Row­ley left Bal­isi­er House at 6.25 pm.

Robin­son-Reg­is and MPs Stephen McLashie, Colm Im­bert, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, Hinds, Kei­th Scot­land and Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis al­so sub­se­quent­ly left.

How­ev­er, dis­cus­sions on the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ued in­side among Young and MPs, in­clud­ing Beck­les, Fos­ter Cum­mings, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Faris Al-Rawi, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and Roger Munroe. Sources said the sec­ond “round” where the is­sues were dis­tilled was more fruit­ful. Young was in­formed it was noth­ing against him per­son­al­ly, but that it was the process, and MPs pre­ferred to await gen­er­al coun­cil mem­bers’ views on the mat­ter be­fore sign­ing the let­ter. That group emerged af­ter 8 pm, leav­ing with hand­shakes and hugs from Young to Beck­les, Cum­mings, Gads­by-Dol­ly and Deyals­ingh.

Sources, dis­miss­ing ru­mours that “all MPs” signed the let­ter on Thurs­day, said while they want to sign, if the pro­posed mo­tion suc­ceeds—and ma­jor­i­ty mem­bers’ views are against the sit­u­a­tion—it will vin­di­cate their po­si­tion.

Ford: T&T’s fate in MPs’ hands

The PNM gen­er­al coun­cil com­pris­es three mem­bers of each con­stituen­cy, plus PNM of­fi­cers—about 134 mem­bers in to­tal, of­fi­cials said.

Coun­cil sources said the pro­posed mo­tion “is on­ly be­cause mem­bers feel left out of the se­lec­tion process.” They ex­pect­ed lead­er­ship con­tenders at a March con­ven­tion would be Cum­mings, Al-Rawi or Beck­les.

For­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford, said, “The Guardian’s front-page pic­ture con­firms my pre­dic­tion that at the end of the day, Stu­art and Pen­ny will be hug­ging. How­ev­er, what pre­ced­ed that was a shame­ful dis­play of op­po­si­tion-style pol­i­tics and politi­cians’ pub­lic fights. The MPs who didn’t sign the let­ter didn’t op­er­ate ac­cord­ing to their ti­tle of ‘ho­n­ourable Mem­ber,’ as they’d agreed in To­ba­go to sign. They have a chance to sign and do the right thing for the pub­lic, which needs the PNM. T&T’s fate is in these MPs’ hands.”

But ex-min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte, ap­plaud­ing MPs who didn’t sign Young’s en­dorse­ment let­ter, said it was im­per­a­tive for mem­bers to have a say in the process. He said it was pos­si­ble to have a con­ven­tion and a new leader by Feb­ru­ary or right af­ter Car­ni­val, and he had no prob­lem with Young but might have pref­er­ences.

“The process is just as im­por­tant as re­sult,” Le Hunte said.

Some con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials ex­pect­ed to at­tend the gen­er­al coun­cil ses­sion didn’t have po­si­tions on the is­sue, oth­ers had no prob­lems with Young’s elec­tion; some said they’d await to see what aris­es on the agen­da.

Sev­er­al PNM con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials ex­pressed con­cern that the nine MPs’ non-sup­port and the par­ty di­vi­sion could cause elec­tion de­feat and dis­lo­ca­tion of their jobs.

“MPs shouldn’t sac­ri­fice the peo­ple for their am­bi­tions. They should find a bet­ter way to work out this ‘prin­ci­ples over peo­ple’ thing,” they added.

Some gen­er­al coun­cil mem­bers will be ab­sent from to­day’s meet­ing, in­clud­ing PNM ex­ec­u­tive (Op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer) Irene Hinds, who had a pre­vi­ous en­gage­ment.