KE­JAN HAYNES | Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

and

AKASH SAMA­ROO | Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning has ac­cused the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal leader of fail­ing to act on what he de­scribes as a “cor­rupt and crim­i­nal el­e­ment” with­in the par­ty, as the in­ter­nal dis­pute in his con­stituen­cy es­ca­lates in­to a pub­lic con­fronta­tion.

Mean­while The PNM has pub­licly re­buked San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning over his han­dling of the grow­ing dis­pute in the con­stituen­cy, ac­cus­ing him of mak­ing in­ac­cu­rate state­ments and re­fus­ing to ho­n­our the par­ty’s in­ter­nal process to re­solve the con­flict.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les an­nounced the par­ty will hold a press con­fer­ence at Bal­isi­er House at 1.30 pm to­day to “cor­rect the pub­lic record” and present what it says are the facts sur­round­ing the con­tro­ver­sy.

The in­ter­ven­tion came af­ter Man­ning, speak­ing on ra­dio, ac­cused the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal leader of fail­ing to act on what he de­scribed as a “cor­rupt and crim­i­nal el­e­ment” with­in the par­ty.

Gon­za­les said Man­ning had failed to re­spect pro­ce­dures es­tab­lished un­der the PNM Con­sti­tu­tion to ad­dress the dis­pute.

“It is un­for­tu­nate that an elect­ed Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment has cho­sen not to ho­n­our the pro­ce­dures ini­ti­at­ed, in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion of the PNM, to ad­dress mat­ters with­in the Con­stituen­cy that he rep­re­sents,” Gon­za­les said.

He al­so ac­cused Man­ning of mak­ing in­ac­cu­rate state­ments which un­fair­ly cast as­per­sions on the PNM, its lead­er­ship and mem­bers of the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy.

“Such con­duct is un­ac­cept­able and must be con­demned,” he said.

Man­ning said he had re­peat­ed­ly raised his con­cerns with the po­lit­i­cal leader over sev­er­al months but had seen no mean­ing­ful ac­tion.

“I have pre­sent­ed this to the po­lit­i­cal leader over and over and over for the past sev­er­al months, over and over,” he said.

He ac­cused the po­lit­i­cal leader of be­ing “un­able or un­will­ing to treat with” what he called a cor­rupt and crim­i­nal el­e­ment with­in the PNM.

“There is a clear, cor­rupt, and crim­i­nal el­e­ment with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment that the po­lit­i­cal leader is ei­ther un­able or un­will­ing to treat with,” Man­ning said.

He warned the sit­u­a­tion could af­fect the par­ty’s elec­toral prospects.

“We have ze­ro chance of win­ning… if we look ex­act­ly like the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress,” he said.

Man­ning said he had told the po­lit­i­cal leader the sit­u­a­tion had be­come un­ten­able and he was un­will­ing to de­fend con­duct he did not ap­prove of.

“I spoke with the leader… and I told her the sit­u­a­tion has be­come un­ten­able, and I am un­will­ing to de­fend be­hav­iour that I do not ap­prove of,” he said.

Asked why he be­lieved the po­lit­i­cal leader had not act­ed, Man­ning de­clined to spec­u­late.

“That is some­thing that you have to ask [her]… I don’t try to speak for oth­er peo­ple. I on­ly speak for my­self,” he said.

Man­ning al­so al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties with­in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, in­clud­ing an in­crease in par­ty groups from 27 at his April nom­i­na­tion to about 32.

He sug­gest­ed the ad­di­tion­al groups had ap­peared sud­den­ly and were be­ing used to in­flu­ence the con­stituen­cy elec­tion.

Man­ning al­so al­leged some mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive had be­come “overnight mil­lion­aires” and raised ques­tions about con­tracts al­leged­ly re­ceived by con­stituen­cy chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is.

He claimed Alex­is had re­ceived mil­lions of dol­lars in CPEP and HDC con­tracts and al­leged she had ac­quired prop­er­ty in Flori­da.

Those claims have not been in­de­pen­dent­ly es­tab­lished.

Man­ning al­so crit­i­cised the in­ter­nal process es­tab­lished by the PNM to ad­dress the dis­pute, de­scrib­ing it as “so ripe with bias and con­flict of in­ter­est”.

He ques­tioned the in­volve­ment of a se­nior par­ty fig­ure who, he said, sits at the head ta­ble when de­ci­sions about the process are made and is al­so on the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive which will re­ceive the re­port.

Man­ning said he was not on the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive but was re­quired to se­lect his rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the same body.

He al­so chal­lenged the man­date of the cur­rent con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, claim­ing it was elect­ed with the sup­port of on­ly sev­en per cent of reg­is­tered PNM vot­ers.

Man­ning said the ex­ec­u­tive had “gone wrong and needs to be re­moved”.

The dis­pute has al­ready re­sult­ed in at least three res­ig­na­tions from the 12-mem­ber con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, with an­oth­er re­port­ed­ly ex­pect­ed.

Some mem­bers have al­so raised con­cerns about a state­ment crit­i­cis­ing Man­ning be­ing is­sued in the ex­ec­u­tive’s name with­out their knowl­edge or ap­proval.

The con­tro­ver­sy deep­ened with for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning, wid­ow of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and moth­er of Bri­an Man­ning, an­nounc­ing her in­ten­tion to con­test the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy chair­man­ship.

The PNM pre­vi­ous­ly es­tab­lished an in­quiry in­to com­plaints raised by Man­ning and Alex­is. Gon­za­les said last week rec­om­men­da­tions from that ex­er­cise were be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

The par­ty is ex­pect­ed to give its fuller re­sponse at to­day’s press con­fer­ence.