DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will hold elec­tions for its PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil on April 19, as the par­ty be­gins a re­build­ing process fol­low­ing its sweep­ing elec­toral de­feat in To­ba­go ear­li­er this year.

The date was con­firmed by PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who told re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment that the To­ba­go Coun­cil had for­mal­ly writ­ten to the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil no­ti­fy­ing it of the planned elec­tion.

Gon­za­les al­so wel­comed the de­ci­sion by Sham­fa Cud­joe, the for­mer To­ba­go West MP and min­is­ter, to en­ter the race for lead­er­ship of the To­ba­go arm of the par­ty.

Link­ing her an­nounce­ment to the week mark­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, Gon­za­les said her can­di­da­cy re­flects the grow­ing role of women with­in the PNM and en­cour­aged more fe­male politi­cians in To­ba­go to step for­ward.

“I saw the video by for­mer MP Sham­fa Cud­joe...as be­ing in­ter­est­ed in vy­ing for the po­si­tion. I want to con­grat­u­late her for mak­ing that very im­por­tant de­ci­sion, es­pe­cial­ly in the week that we are cel­e­brat­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day. I think it sig­ni­fies the strength of women in the PNM, and I want to en­cour­age oth­er young fe­male politi­cians in To­ba­go to al­so come for­ward and of­fer them­selves for na­tion­al ser­vice in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.”

Op­po­si­tion leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­so wel­comed the up­com­ing in­ter­nal con­test, ac­knowl­edg­ing the par­ty faces a dif­fi­cult re­build­ing phase af­ter suf­fer­ing a 15-0 de­feat in the 2025 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion ear­li­er this year.

Speak­ing on the sig­nif­i­cance of the vote, Beck­les said the par­ty must take time to re­flect on the loss and re­con­nect with To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“We are look­ing for­ward to a To­ba­go coun­cil that would recog­nise the im­por­tance of lis­ten­ing to the To­ba­go peo­ple and recog­nis­ing that with 15-0, we of course have to get our act to­geth­er.”

She al­so wel­comed Cud­joe’s de­ci­sion to con­test the lead­er­ship, de­scrib­ing the in­ter­nal elec­tion as part of the par­ty’s nec­es­sary post-elec­tion re­flec­tion and re­build­ing ef­fort.