Gail Alexan­der

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has rung in the changes with­in his con­tin­gent of deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers.

For­mer par­ty chair­man Colm Im­bert and vice chair­man Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly were an­nounced as deputy lead­ers at last Sat­ur­day’s PNM Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing.

PNM of­fi­cials con­firmed this to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

There’s al­so been a change in re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for the new deputy lead­ers.

The par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal leader nor­mal­ly ap­points PNM’s four deputy lead­ers. How­ev­er, none were an­nounced at PNM’s con­ven­tion last De­cem­ber, since bal­lots for the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion were still be­ing count­ed and a leader wasn’t an­nounced at the con­ven­tion.

Row­ley was an­nounced as leader when all bal­lots were in and tal­lied af­ter the con­ven­tion.

The PNM’s deputies an­nounced at last Sat­ur­day’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil were Fi­nance Min­is­ter Im­bert, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly and Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan. Deputy lead­ers al­ready in­clud­ed An­cil Den­nis (PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil).

Im­bert and Gads­by-Dol­ly re­place long­stand­ing deputy leader Joan Yuille-Williams and Fitzger­ald Hinds. Yuille-Williams was deputy leader (par­ty and elec­tion mat­ters) for many years since the 1990s un­der the Patrick Man­ning PNM.

Hinds was ap­point­ed deputy leader (leg­is­la­tive mat­ters) in 2019, re­plac­ing for­mer min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, who was is cur­rent­ly be­fore the courts on al­leg­ed cor­rup­tion charges.

Sinanan is on his lat­est term as deputy leader (pol­i­cy mat­ters), serv­ing over ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 years, of­fi­cials es­ti­mat­ed.

Of­fi­cials said the ar­eas for which deputy lead­ers hold re­spon­si­bil­i­ty have al­so now been changed. Sinanan will be in charge of par­ty and elec­tion mat­ters. Im­bert will han­dle leg­isla­tive mat­ters and Gads­by-Dol­ly pol­i­cy mat­ters.

Im­bert was PNM chair­man from 2018 to last year. He didn’t con­test the post in last De­cem­ber’s par­ty elec­tions and was suc­ceed­ed by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young (Min­is­ter in the OPM), who con­test­ed it.

Gads­by-Dol­ly was elect­ed PNM vice chair­man in that elec­tion. Of­fi­cials said she re­signed as vice chair­man to take up the post of deputy po­lit­i­cal leader. They said the PNM’s con­sti­tu­tion al­lows the Gen­er­al Coun­cil to elect some­one to fill the post. The PNM’s next in­ter­nal elec­tion is 2026.

PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi didn’t re­ply to queries on the changes yes­ter­day. Oth­er PNM of­fi­cials said Al-Rawi didn’t at­tend last Sat­ur­day’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil.

The new deputies are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced at to­day’s “Mix and Min­gle” event for the me­dia at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain. The last such event was in 2020 but pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions were on sub­se­quent­ly, bring­ing a half to such pub­lic ac­tiv­i­ties.

A me­dia re­port re­cent­ly stat­ed Row­ley had in­di­cat­ed he would demit of­fice at the end of the term. If so, that means the rest of the term’s 35 months will be Row­ley’s last.

In the re­port, he said in the re­cent in­ter­nal elec­tion, peo­ple would have seen “sig­nif­i­cant changes” in the PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive and that ap­proach would con­tin­ue. He’d said this month, the PNM would im­ple­ment its new ex­ec­u­tive and “pre­pare our­selves go­ing for­ward.”