Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira has warned that the par­ty’s great­est mis­take was pan­ick­ing and se­lect­ing the wrong leader fol­low­ing its crush­ing 26-13 de­feat in Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

His re­marks came af­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young ten­dered their res­ig­na­tions as po­lit­i­cal leader and chair­man of the par­ty re­spec­tive­ly and news be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing that Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les had re­ceived the ma­jor­i­ty sup­port of the MPs to be Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Fer­reira be­lieves Young should have been backed by the par­ty as op­po­si­tion leader.

“They should have giv­en the par­ty time to ex­hale, analyse, re­view, do the in­tro-in­spec­tion and if they were not sat­is­fied with Stu­art Young, they had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­move him at the con­ven­tion. But there was no time to pan­ic and make de­ci­sions that are like­ly to have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for it,” Fer­reira said.

He al­so raised con­cerns about the lack of eth­nic di­ver­si­ty among the 13 elect­ed PNM MPs, warn­ing that this could alien­ate sec­tions of the pop­u­la­tion.

“And that is why I make ref­er­ence to the fact that the on­ly non-African in your 13, you lick him up. You’re giv­ing the op­po­si­tion (UNC) ma­te­r­i­al to talk about you. You have to be care­ful with these things when you’re mak­ing these de­ci­sions. I don’t think that will send the right sig­nal.”

He placed full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the de­feat on Row­ley, who had been po­lit­i­cal leader for the past 15 years, ac­cus­ing him of cling­ing to con­trol be­hind the scenes.

“I mean, it’s clear to every­body that in spite of the fact that he had ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion that he was op­er­at­ed by re­mote con­trol. It was clear that Stu­art Young was his pro­tégé,” he said.

“But he has to ac­cept full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the de­feat of the PNM, that as the leader of the par­ty, it means that what­ev­er strat­e­gy, or the strat­e­gy that he ap­plied, was in­ef­fec­tive.”

Fer­reira al­so crit­i­cised the par­ty’s elec­tion ma­chin­ery, which he said col­lapsed due to gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings run­ning as a can­di­date.

“The gen­er­al sec­re­tary is the per­son who ought to know every­thing, in every par­ty group, every con­stituen­cy group. And it’s quite clear from the re­sults that the par­ty elec­tion ma­chin­ery col­lapsed. They had ei­ther no clue of what was go­ing on on the ground, or in fact if they had any clue, they didn’t pay any at­ten­tion to it.”

Fer­reira said the scale of de­feat, in­clud­ing loss­es in tra­di­tion­al strong­holds like La Brea and Point Fortin, sig­nalled deep is­sues with­in the par­ty.

“The mar­gin­als are al­ways un­pre­dictable. But when you lose La Brea and Point Fortin it tells you some­thing. The PNM had not lost an elec­tion in La Brea since 1986. Point Fortin, same thing. And you lost them? It tells you some­thing went wrong.”

He re­peat­ed his ear­li­er po­si­tion that Row­ley should have stepped down as po­lit­i­cal leader when he re­signed as prime min­is­ter—and again af­ter Mon­day’s loss.

Fer­reira al­so said Row­ley should not have de­liv­ered the con­ces­sion speech. He com­pared Row­ley’s han­dling of suc­ces­sion to Ja­maica’s Bruce Gold­ing and An­drew Hol­ness, sug­gest­ing that the tran­si­tion should have been more de­lib­er­ate and struc­tured.

“You see, the thing has to be han­dled in a cer­tain way and it was not,” he said.

De­spite his crit­i­cisms, Fer­reira ex­pressed faith in the PNM’s abil­i­ty to re­cov­er, cit­ing its strong foun­da­tion.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Hamid Ghany al­so crit­i­cised Row­ley and Young for not re­sign­ing im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the elec­tion loss.

“Now, the PNM has gone down in flames to a gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat, in­spired by the lead­er­ship of Dr Row­ley and Mr Young, be­cause this was Dr Row­ley’s strat­e­gy of a two-pronged lead­er­ship for the PNM. And it did not work, be­cause it’s alien to our po­lit­i­cal cul­ture,” Ghany said yes­ter­day.

“I’m sur­prised that both he (Young) and Dr Row­ley did not of­fer their res­ig­na­tions or in­di­cate their res­ig­na­tions on Mon­day night but rather at­tempt­ed to hold on. And now that there is a welling of dis­con­tent show­ing up on so­cial me­dia about what is hap­pen­ing in­side the PNM, we see Dr Row­ley and Mr Young, with­in hours of each oth­er, putting for­ward these res­ig­na­tions. This should have been done on Mon­day night, not on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.”

Ghany, who called the elec­tion out­come cor­rect­ly in a Guardian Me­dia-com­mis­sioned poll, added that the sit­u­a­tion was wors­ened by the loss of key par­ty fig­ures, in­clud­ing Cum­mings, PRO Faris Al-Rawi and oth­ers.

He con­clud­ed that the par­ty now finds it­self in cri­sis, and Row­ley must shoul­der most of the blame.

Sinanan al­so among ca­su­al­ties

Five hours af­ter Dr Row­ley an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion as po­lit­i­cal leader, his suc­ces­sor, Stu­art Young, al­so re­signed as PNM chair­man, re­veal­ing his de­ci­sion came af­ter deep per­son­al re­flec­tion of the elec­tion re­sults.

In a let­ter ad­dressed to PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, Young said, “It has been an ho­n­our and an in­valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence to be the chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (“PNM”), since De­cem­ber 2022. I have al­ways served our par­ty with a sense of pride cou­pled with an ac­knowl­edge­ment of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that rep­re­sen­ta­tion comes with.

“Af­ter deep per­son­al re­flec­tion on events, cul­mi­nat­ing with the re­sult of the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions, I here­by ten­der my res­ig­na­tion as chair­man of the PNM, with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to thank the par­ty mem­ber­ship for the op­por­tu­ni­ty and priv­i­lege to have served as chair­man of the PNM. I am grate­ful for the sup­port and re­spect shown to me by the par­ty mem­ber­ship and I wish to as­sure that I re­main com­mit­ted to the found­ing prin­ci­ples of our par­ty. Please con­vey my thanks and ap­pre­ci­a­tion to our mem­ber­ship via the Gen­er­al Coun­cil.”

Young had been chair­man since 2022.

Two hours af­ter Young, for­mer Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan re­signed as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader.

Sinanan told Guardian Me­dia since Row­ley ap­point­ed him deputy leader, it was on­ly prop­er to re­sign af­ter him.

Sinanan said, “In ac­cor­dance with the prin­ci­ples of the West­min­ster sys­tem of gov­ern­ment, and hav­ing been ap­point­ed deputy po­lit­i­cal leader by Dr Kei­th Row­ley, it is on­ly prop­er that up­on his res­ig­na­tion as po­lit­i­cal leader, I too ten­der my res­ig­na­tion. This de­ci­sion re­flects both a re­spect for the nat­ur­al course of po­lit­i­cal suc­ces­sion and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties that come with such an ap­point­ment.”

The PNM had four deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, Sinanan, Colm Im­bert, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and An­cil Den­nis.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Im­bert, he said their po­si­tions were up for dis­cus­sion.

Im­bert said, “There are dif­fer­ing views. An­oth­er view is that the deputies re­main un­til a new po­lit­i­cal leader is ap­point­ed so it’s un­der dis­cus­sion.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly could not be reached for com­ment.

How­ev­er, Den­nis told Guardian Me­dia that he will not be re­sign­ing. (See oth­er sto­ry)

Un­like the oth­ers, Den­nis is the on­ly deputy not se­lect­ed by Row­ley, as who­ev­er is elect­ed to lead the To­ba­go arm of the par­ty au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be­comes a deputy leader.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence fol­low­ing a gen­er­al coun­cil yes­ter­day, Cum­mings said the fill­ing of the oth­er po­si­tions will be forth­com­ing.