Gail Alexan­der

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Laven­tille East/Mor­vant con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive wants MP Adri­an Leonce to re­con­sid­er his de­ci­sion not to re­con­test the seat for gen­er­al elec­tion.

How­ev­er, while ac­knowl­edg­ing the love, Leonce last evening main­tained his po­si­tion not to con­test in re­sponse to queries on whether he would heed his ex­ec­u­tive’s ap­peal.

“I am heart­ened with all the sup­port and en­cour­age­ment I am get­ting. Many per­sons are pray­ing for me and my fam­i­ly. I know they want me to sort out my per­son­al is­sues as that takes pri­or­i­ty,” Leonce said.

How­ev­er, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers last night made it clear they will not ac­cept any­one else but Leonce, say­ing, “He has stood with us in our times and we will now stand with him in his time as he gets things fixed.”

Leonce, who was born and grew up in Laven­tille East, did not show up at the PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters for Mon­day’s screen­ing process for gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees for 15 PNM-held seats. His con­stituen­cy was among those be­ing screened. Leonce was un­op­posed for the can­di­da­cy and was sup­port­ed strong­ly by all par­ty groups and ex­ec­u­tive alike.

On Tues­day, Leonce said he loves his con­stituents but on Mon­day some very se­ri­ous per­son­al is­sues that af­fect his fam­i­ly and him­self were brought to his at­ten­tion and he had no choice but to pull out of the race. He said it broke his heart to not be able to of­fer his full ser­vice to con­stituents but he was com­mit­ted to serv­ing un­til the end of the term. He said he had to ad­dress his per­son­al is­sues and hoped in the fu­ture, as these is­sues are re­solved, he can re­turn to serve the peo­ple.

The PNM sub­se­quent­ly re­opened nom­i­na­tions for the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, which must sub­mit nom­i­nees by De­cem­ber 20. La Brea, whose nom­i­nees were re­ject­ed, was al­so man­dat­ed to pro­vide fresh nom­i­nees by that date.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the Laven­tille East/Mor­vant ex­ec­u­tive said mem­bers met on Tues­day in emer­gency ses­sion to dis­cuss Leonce’s an­nounce­ment.

The ex­ec­u­tive said, “Af­ter thor­ough de­lib­er­a­tions and recog­nis­ing the crit­i­cal role MP Leonce has played in ad­vanc­ing the de­vel­op­ment and wel­fare of the con­stituen­cy, the ex­ec­u­tive unan­i­mous­ly re­solved to re­quest that he re­con­sid­er his de­ci­sion.

“MP Adri­an Leonce has demon­strat­ed un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to the peo­ple of Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, cham­pi­oning the ini­tia­tives that have sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed the lives of res­i­dents and the broad­er con­stituen­cy.

“His vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship and tire­less ef­forts have ce­ment­ed him as a pil­lar of strength and in­spi­ra­tion to all. The Laven­tille East/Mor­vant ex­ec­u­tive firm­ly be­lieves that MP Leonce’s con­tin­ued rep­re­sen­ta­tion is vi­tal to main­tain­ing the progress achieved un­der his stew­ard­ship and en­sur­ing the con­stituen­cy’s fur­ther de­vel­op­ment.,”

The ex­ec­u­tive urged him to re­flect on this de­ci­sion in light of the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port and con­fi­dence of the peo­ple and ex­ec­u­tive.

Last night con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials told Guardian Me­dia they didn’t want an­oth­er MP and the ex­ec­u­tive had no new nom­i­na­tions to give the PNM. They re­ject­ed for­mer MP Don­na Cox, whose name has been men­tioned as a pos­si­ble re­place­ment to Leonce.

Cox didn't re­ply to queries on if she’d of­fer con­sent for nom­i­na­tion.

The of­fi­cials ex­plained, “We want to en­sure Laven­tille East/Mor­vant gets the prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion we have with Mr Leonce and that it re­mains that way. One thing that def­i­nite­ly must not be for­got­ten is that peo­ple who are not PNM vote for him.

“Plus he’s known in ar­eas far and wide in the con­stituen­cy. Peo­ple know him as hands-on help, from sports to help­ing busi­ness­es every­thing - this is a man who is try his ut­most best for his peo­ple.”

Since Leonce’s an­nounce­ment, he has been praised high­ly by many con­stituents, some of whom re­call him tak­ing mon­ey out of his own pock­et to help those in need and oth­ers who cred­it him with try­ing to get pro­grammes go­ing for the “hotspot” con­stituen­cy.

A re­tired elec­tri­cian in the area said, “That boy is stand up for peo­ple, if he coul­da stay it would be bet­ter...I mean who PNM could re­al­ly put here?”

A trans­port con­trac­tor said Laven­tille born and bred Leonce, an en­gi­neer - be­ing an ex­am­ple of some­one who “made it” - was a “re­al good fi “ for the con­stituen­cy.

“Sup­pose they give we some­body who not from here or don’t know the area good? It ent go work ...” a busi­ness­woman added.