KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

De­spite the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) unan­i­mous­ly se­lect­ing Pen­ne­lope Beck­les as its Op­po­si­tion Leader and its gen­er­al coun­cil elect­ing a new chair­man and vice chair­man, not every­one is con­vinced the par­ty is uni­fied.

In fact, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed says, de­spite the re­cent shake-up, the par­ty is not yet stur­dy.

Mo­hammed told Guardian Me­dia that Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly’s nar­row de­feat over Port-of-Spain may­or Chin­ua Al­leyne for chair­man on Tues­day sug­gests se­ri­ous in­ter­nal rifts.

Mo­hammed said, “There’s clear­ly a split, a huge split in the par­ty, and Gads­by-Dol­ly tak­ing up chair­man­ship is one, strate­gic; two, it’s po­lit­i­cal sur­vival; and three, she un­der­stands, at least (Colm) Im­bert does, the role of the chair­man and how im­por­tant the chair­man­ship is. It could very well be that Gads­by-Dol­ly was play­ing a very cau­tious game while in gov­ern­ment and tak­ing up the role as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, shift­ing from vice chair to deputy po­lit­i­cal leader. It is al­so ru­moured that pri­or to the Stu­art Young as­cen­sion, she was one of those that was be­ing looked at as a po­ten­tial po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship suc­ces­sor.”

“So what I see hap­pen­ing here is a very in­ter­est­ing move, play of chess on this PNM chess­board where we are see­ing shift­ing of al­liances and al­le­giances, defin­ing that there are, in the ab­sence of gov­ern­ment, now in op­po­si­tion, there is se­ri­ous show­ing of hands and al­le­giances and rifts, dis­agree­ments,” he added.

But in his opin­ion, the be­gin­ning of the PNM’s fall took place in To­ba­go at the start of the year when for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley forced the then cau­cus to elect Young as his re­place­ment.

Mov­ing ahead, he be­lieves the par­ty has a long way to go be­fore it can call it­self tru­ly healed, as many mem­bers are still hold­ing grudges. And even as the ex­ec­u­tive fo­cus­es on sched­ul­ing its next in­ter­nal elec­tion, Dr Mo­hammed be­lieves there will be more feud­ing tak­ing place at the con­ven­tion, as there are sev­er­al peo­ple with­in the par­ty eye­ing ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions.

Sources tell Guardian Me­dia that for­mer For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne; de­feat­ed PNM mem­bers of par­lia­ment Faris Al-Rawi and Fos­ter Cum­mings; and San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning all have as­pi­ra­tions for the po­lit­i­cal leader post.

Stu­art Young’s post-elec­tion de­feat acts, in­clud­ing host­ing a per­son­al press con­fer­ence at Bal­isi­er House, sep­a­rate from the par­ty’s press con­fer­ence, and choos­ing not to fol­low his col­leagues and open­ly de­clare his sup­port for Beck­les as Op­po­si­tion Leader, are ev­i­dence enough that all is not well with­in the par­ty, ac­cord­ing to some peo­ple.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, some gen­er­al coun­cil mem­bers have al­so been quite vo­cal about their griev­ances with the par­ty, with many blam­ing Dr Row­ley for the re­cent elec­tion de­feat.

How­ev­er, Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath be­lieves the PNM’s new strat­e­gy is look­ing to­wards younger peo­ple to take the par­ty for­ward.

Dr Ra­goonath said, “They need to find younger blood, but they need to get prop­er blood prop­er­ly men­tored, and to that ex­tent, I think peo­ple like Mr Im­bert, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is as la­dy vice chair­man and even Pen­ne­lope Beck­les could serve as good men­tors to the par­ty as they go for­ward. Be­yond those three, I don’t think the par­ty has any­body who has been in the par­lia­ment for more than ten years.”

He added, “Colm Im­bert is go­ing to hold the hands of Dr Nyan-Gads­by Dol­ly hope­ful­ly and teach her the ropes in terms of chair­man­ship and the amount of pow­er. Now bear in mind that the chair­man of the par­ty is the most pow­er­ful per­son be­yond the po­lit­i­cal leader, and even some­times the chair­man of the par­ty could over­whelm the po­lit­i­cal leader,” he added.

Of the PNM’s 13 op­po­si­tion MPs, there are four new­com­ers and four who en­tered the par­lia­ment in 2020.