The To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) says any sud­den res­ig­na­tion of its ex­ec­u­tive can dam­age the par­ty. The state­ment was a di­rect re­sponse to calls for for­mer coun­cil chair­man Stan­ford Cal­len­der for the coun­cil ex­ec­u­tive to step down to al­low the par­ty to plot a new way for­ward in To­ba­go.

The coun­cil al­so sug­gest­ed that Cal­len­der aban­doned the To­ba­go branch of the PNM at a time when the ef­forts of all mem­bers were best need­ed, say­ing he “left the par­ty in the face of ad­ver­si­ty and chal­lenges.”

“The PNM re­mains strong and re­silient, and now is not the time to turn our backs on the par­ty be­cause of dis­ap­point­ment or to run away from ad­ver­si­ty. In­stead, the cir­cum­stances dic­tate that the ex­ec­u­tive and all mem­bers unite and re­group for the ben­e­fit of both the par­ty and the peo­ple of To­ba­go,” a re­lease from the coun­cil said.

Cal­len­der re­signed on Wednes­day in the wake of the 14-1 de­feat to the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots in Mon­day’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions.

The coun­cil said the PNM re­mains strong and re­silient and, in ref­er­ence to Cal­len­der’s call, added that the par­ty’s wel­fare takes prece­dent over any sin­gle per­son.

“While we un­der­stand that many will have their views on the way for­ward, the par­ty must con­duct its own as­sess­ment. This process is al­ready un­der­way,” the state­ment said.

The coun­cil said if there are sud­den res­ig­na­tions, there will be no sys­tem to elect a new team. It said the par­ty has a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process to se­lect a po­lit­i­cal leader and ex­ec­u­tive. It said mem­bers must re­spect this and that now was not the time for a hap­haz­ard ap­proach. 

The coun­cil said it was al­so now im­por­tant for the ex­ec­u­tive to sup­port Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris, its lone vic­tor at the polls, and coun­cil­lor Petal Daniel-Benoit.

The coun­cil said it ac­cept­ed the voice of To­bag­o­ni­ans and is in the process of re­group­ing and as­sess­ing the re­cent elec­tion re­sults.

It thanked the over 11,000 peo­ple who vot­ed for the PNM, say­ing their con­fi­dence and sup­port made its ef­fort worth­while.