Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Some Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­bers say there should be no in­ter­nal elec­tion un­til an im­me­di­ate in­de­pen­dent au­dit of the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship data­base is com­plet­ed.

That’s the call from the PNM Change­mak­ers 2025 group, which has emerged call­ing for the re­moval of PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings. The group has al­so lev­elled al­le­ga­tions about the se­lec­tion of Pen­ne­lope Beck­les as Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Con­tact­ed on this yes­ter­day, PNM of­fi­cials, who asked not to be named, dis­missed the Change­mak­ers’ state­ment as “mis­chief,” not­ing the mat­ter “will be dealt with in­ter­nal­ly.”

The Change­mak­ers’ state­ment, en­ti­tled Call to Ac­tion, Time for ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and re­form in the PNM, is the lat­est is­sue to hit the par­ty, which is try­ing to re­group af­ter its April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion de­feat by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

The group said the PNM “stands at a crit­i­cal junc­ture. The voic­es of the peo­ple have spo­ken, and the ver­dict is clear: our par­ty must re­turn to its foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ples of in­tegri­ty, democ­ra­cy, and ac­count­abil­i­ty. Yet, one of the clear­est ob­sta­cles to that re­new­al re­mains at the heart of the par­ty’s ma­chin­ery — Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary and de­feat­ed La Hor­quet­ta/ Tal­paro MP, Fos­ter Cum­mings.”

It added, “De­spite PNM’s elec­toral set­back and grow­ing calls for in­ter­nal re­form, Mr Cum­mings re­fus­es to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty or step aside. His con­tin­ued pres­ence in this role rais­es se­ri­ous con­cerns that go be­yond po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tion — they strike at the core of the par­ty’s cred­i­bil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty. We is­sue this ur­gent call to the PNM Gen­er­al Coun­cil and mem­ber­ship to de­mand the im­me­di­ate re­moval of Fos­ter Cum­mings as Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary.”

The Change­mak­ers al­leged Cum­mings abused his of­fice and breached du­ties with the re­cent elec­toral process­es.

“Two in­el­i­gi­ble per­sons — Dr Amery Browne and Roger Mon­roe — were per­mit­ted to vote in Tues­day’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil elec­tions, cast­ing doubt on the le­git­i­ma­cy of the out­come,” the group claimed.

The group al­so al­leged ma­nip­u­la­tion of in­ter­nal elec­tions and doc­u­ment­ed a “pat­tern of in­ter­fer­ence and rig­ging.”

The Change­mak­ers al­so claimed there was an ”un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic con­fir­ma­tion” of the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“When Beck­les was ap­point­ed Op­po­si­tion Leader, the con­sti­tu­tion­al process was by­passed. There was no cau­cus meet­ing of the 13 MPs, no in­ter­nal se­cret vote, as was done in To­ba­go by Dr Row­ley, as was done in 2010 when Dr Row­ley be­came Op­po­si­tion Leader. In­stead, a pre­ma­ture press re­lease was is­sued be­fore Gen­er­al Coun­cil rat­i­fi­ca­tion — a move co­or­di­nat­ed by Lau­rel Leza­ma and oth­ers, with Mr Cum­mings’ in­volve­ment.”

The group called for in­de­pen­dent over­sight in­sist­ing on im­me­di­ate in­de­pen­dent au­dit of PNM’s mem­ber­ship data­base, a halt to any in­ter­nal elec­tions un­til this process is com­plete; over­sight of fu­ture elec­tions by a third-par­ty au­di­tor and the Par­ty’s Elec­tion Com­mit­tee.

How­ev­er, new­ly elect­ed Chair­man Gads­by-Dol­ly dis­missed al­le­ga­tions of elec­tion dis­crep­an­cies and per­son­al pref­er­ences in Tues­day’s Spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Dol­ly as­sured the meet­ing was du­ly con­vened and chaired by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and La­dy Vice chair­man of the par­ty, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is. The Chair­man said Robin­son-Reg­is over­saw the elec­tion process, which was con­duct­ed in the pres­ence of over 140 at­ten­dees and de­scribed it as ful­ly trans­par­ent.

Gads­by-Dol­ly and Im­bert were vot­ed in as Chair­man and Vice Chair­man re­spec­tive­ly.

The state­ment con­clud­ed by af­firm­ing the PNM’s com­mit­ment to han­dling in­ter­nal mat­ters dili­gent­ly, trans­par­ent­ly, and ex­pe­di­tious­ly in ser­vice to both its mem­bers and the na­tion.

Le Hunte eyes

po­lit­i­cal leader post

For­mer PNM vice chair­man Robert Le Hunte is con­sid­er­ing sug­ges­tions by par­ty mem­bers on po­ten­tial roles they feel he can un­der­take.

“I’m thought­ful­ly con­sid­er­ing each of their sug­ges­tions,” he added.

Le Hunte said this yes­ter­day when asked whether or not he would seek the post of po­lit­i­cal leader.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Beck­les, ac­cord­ing to par­ty sources, is al­so ex­pect­ed to seek the post, even as oth­er con­tenders emerge.