Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Two days af­ter re­sign­ing as Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil chair­man and re­nounc­ing her mem­ber­ship, Nicole Hen­ry-Wal­dron has changed her mind. In a let­ter to PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, Hen­ry-Wal­dron said up­on re­flec­tion, she has de­cid­ed to con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing to the par­ty and to the de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try.

“I there­fore re­spect­ful­ly re­quest that my res­ig­na­tion be treat­ed as with­drawn. If it has al­ready been for­mal­ly ac­cept­ed or processed, kind­ly ad­vise me of the steps re­quired to re­store my mem­ber­ship and clar­i­fy the sta­tus of any po­si­tion af­fect­ed,” she wrote.

While not­ing her con­cerns about the par­ty re­main valid, the for­mer chair­man said she is will­ing to ad­dress those is­sues through di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“It is my hope that we can move for­ward in a spir­it of uni­ty, with mean­ing­ful op­por­tu­ni­ties for mem­bers to con­tribute and have their con­cerns heard.”

Hen­ry-Wal­dron’s de­par­ture was the sec­ond res­ig­na­tion to hit the coun­cil on Oc­to­ber 1, as youth of­fi­cer Car­lesia Mc Ewin al­so stepped down, cit­ing dis­cord, dis­con­nect and di­vi­sion in the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive. How­ev­er, she did not re­sign from the par­ty.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis told Guardian Me­dia the ex-chair­man’s re­turn is not au­to­mat­ic.

She not­ed Hen­ry-Wal­dron must first reg­u­larise her par­ty mem­ber­ship through an ap­pli­ca­tion to PNM’s cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive.

Cud­joe-Lewis said Hen­ry-Wal­dron re­signed her post with im­me­di­ate ef­fect on Thurs­day, al­low­ing no room for dis­cus­sion with the ex­ec­u­tive.

She ac­knowl­edged be­ing sur­prised by the res­ig­na­tion, but added she had no choice but to ac­cept it.

Asked whether she would wel­come Hen­ry-Wal­dron back on the ex­ec­u­tive, Cud­joe-Lewis replied, “Let’s wait and see what the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive does at this point.”

On whether she had done any in­tro­spec­tion on the is­sue, Cud­joe-Lewis chuck­led be­fore re­fer­ring Guardian Me­dia to her so­cial me­dia post on Sun­day.

In her post, the for­mer min­is­ter said she will con­tin­ue to lead, lis­ten and make tough de­ci­sions for the ben­e­fit of the par­ty.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieves the re­ver­sal of Hen­ry-Wal­dron’s de­ci­sion was a re­sult of me­di­a­tion ef­forts by a se­nior par­ty of­fi­cial. He said who­ev­er in­ter­vened should have been do­ing that job ear­li­er.

“She is hu­man. This po­lit­i­cal thing is quite emo­tion­al. The PNM can­not af­ford to lose mem­bers at this point in time; they need all hands on deck to put things back to­geth­er,” he said.

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed warned that dis­agree­ments will con­tin­ue.

He added that the sce­nario is a valu­able les­son on not act­ing emo­tion­al­ly and im­pul­sive­ly.

For­mer PNM To­ba­go chair­man Stan­ford Cal­len­der de­clined to ad­dress the de­vel­op­ment, say­ing he was tak­ing a back seat in pol­i­tics. Pressed on whether he was sur­prised by the res­ig­na­tions, he said, “Noth­ing in pol­i­tics sur­pris­es me.”

For­mer PNM To­ba­go leader An­cil Den­nis de­clined to com­ment when con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia. Ef­forts to con­tact PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les were un­suc­cess­ful up to pub­li­ca­tion.