The PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil must have the fi­nal say on Stu­art Young as prime min­is­ter, ac­cord­ing to se­nior par­ty mem­ber Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus. She al­so said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley should step down and deal with the con­sti­tu­tion­al process to en­sure the PNM has a po­lit­i­cal leader to take the par­ty in­to 2025 polls.

“Any­thing less is ma­nip­u­la­tion of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process,” Bap­tiste-Primus said yes­ter­day.

Her re­sponse came af­ter Row­ley an­nounced the par­lia­men­tary cau­cus had vot­ed in favour of Young as­sum­ing the role of Prime Min­is­ter when he steps down.

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son al­so of­fered her­self.

Re­act­ing to the an­nounce­ment, Bap­tiste-Primus said she in­di­cat­ed last week that such a sit­u­a­tion re­quires go­ing to the Gen­er­al Coun­cil.

“And I still hold that po­si­tion. While I recog­nise the par­ty’s par­lia­men­tary arm, that’s not the par­ty’s su­pe­ri­or body. The su­pe­ri­or body is PNM’s con­ven­tion.”

She added, “Be­tween con­ven­tion meet­ings, the Gen­er­al Coun­cil is the high­est rul­ing body and there, two things have to hap­pen.

“The Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed he wouldn’t be lead­ing the PNM in­to 2025 elec­tions, there­fore, it’s the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the ho­n­ourable po­lit­i­cal leader that he must af­ford the par­ty the breath­ing space to pro­ceed forth­with to elect a po­lit­i­cal leader to take us in­to 2025 elec­tions. It can’t be the Par­lia­men­tary Cau­cus – that’s not suf­fi­cient. What has to hap­pen, if he cares about the PNM, is that he has to step down, as you’re not lead­ing us in­to elec­tions, and pro­ceed to deal with the con­sti­tu­tion­al process to en­sure we have a po­lit­i­cal leader to lead us in­to 2025 polls. Any­thing less than that is ma­nip­u­la­tion of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process in the PNM.”

Bap­tiste-Primus added, “Sec­ond­ly, if the Prime Min­is­ter’s pre­pared to re­sign, as he wants to spend more time with fam­i­ly, grant­ed then that the same rea­sons must be op­er­a­tive in your po­si­tion as po­lit­i­cal leader– you can’t want to re­sign as PM as your fam­i­ly needs you and hold on to po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship!

“So what are you do­ing? You’re set­ting up the par­ty to lose! I’ve ad­vo­cat­ed for the con­sti­tu­tion of the PNM … Do the right thing!”

Bap­tiste-Primus said she didn’t know what would hap­pen if that wasn’t done.

Stal­warts dif­fer on ‘con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty’ of de­ci­sion

Mean­while, a long­time PNM mem­ber Fer­die Fer­reira has cast doubt on the fi­nal­i­ty of the de­ci­sion to have Young serve as prime min­is­ter.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia short­ly af­ter the an­nounce­ment, Fer­reira em­pha­sised that the Par­lia­men­tary Cau­cus does not rep­re­sent the par­ty as a whole.

He ex­pressed con­cern over why Row­ley made the an­nounce­ment with­out first seek­ing ap­proval from the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, al­though he ac­knowl­edged the pos­i­tive as­pect of hav­ing a suc­ces­sor cho­sen.

“The par­lia­men­tary cau­cus is one arm of the par­ty. I can on­ly hope that this sat­is­fies the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, which, in the ab­sence of a con­ven­tion, is the supreme au­thor­i­ty,” Fer­reira said.

He al­so cau­tioned that if the par­ty base re­jects Row­ley’s pick of Young, the PNM could risk los­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion.

“Once the Gen­er­al Coun­cil rat­i­fies it, he can then ten­der his res­ig­na­tion and in­stall Stu­art as Prime Min­is­ter,” Fer­reira said.

“If the Gen­er­al Coun­cil doesn’t ap­prove it, there will be a prob­lem. That will be the true test of Row­ley’s lead­er­ship.”

PNM stal­wart Mar­i­lyn Gor­don dis­agreed, ar­gu­ing that T&T’s Con­sti­tu­tion has gov­erned this de­ci­sion.

“He doesn’t have to seek the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil. The Con­sti­tu­tion of the coun­try says the prime min­is­ter shall be the mem­ber of par­lia­ment, mem­ber of par­lia­ment not the sen­a­tor, who com­mands the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of the mem­bers in the House,” she re­it­er­at­ed.

Gor­don be­lieves no mem­ber will ob­ject to Young’s se­lec­tion, fear­ing the reper­cus­sions of go­ing against the par­ty.

Nei­ther Gor­don nor Fer­reira re­vealed whether or not they per­son­al­ly sup­port­ed Young for the lead­er­ship role.