SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Out­go­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) la­dy vice chair Camille Robin­son-Reg­is is call­ing on all can­di­dates vy­ing for ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions in to­mor­row’s in­ter­nal elec­tion to set aside their dif­fer­ences and stop bring­ing each oth­er down.

“I’m deeply sad­dened by the fact that this in­ter­nal elec­tion has turned in­to the bash­ing of peo­ple who gen­uine­ly care for and have worked dili­gent­ly for our beloved par­ty and coun­try,” Robin­son-Reg­is stat­ed in a Face­book post yes­ter­day, not­ing that even for­mer prime min­is­ter and PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley had been a tar­get of at­tacks dur­ing the in­ter­nal cam­paign.

“It is now very sad to see Dr Row­ley, who on­ly want­ed and still wants what is best for our par­ty and coun­try, un­der at­tack from some of his own par­ty, in­deed per­sons whose po­lit­i­cal ca­reer he res­ur­rect­ed and whom he en­trust­ed with high of­fice, be­ing vil­i­fied by our own and at the same time our op­po­nents are vil­i­fy­ing him. It’s painful to see that tak­ing place. It is so un­nec­es­sary and un­for­tu­nate.”

She added, “Un­be­liev­ably though, is that, some mem­bers of the lead­er­ship who are be­ing ac­cused of fail­ing us form an in­te­gral part of the One Love, isn’t that con­tra­dic­to­ry?” she asked.

Her com­ments came hours ahead of the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, to­mor­row.

The elec­tion will fea­ture two slates—the One PNM team un­der Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son’s lead­er­ship and The Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons led by at­tor­ney Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai—chal­leng­ing each oth­er, along­side 30 in­de­pen­dents vy­ing for the 17 ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions up for grabs.

Hav­ing served the PNM for many years, Robin­son-Reg­is told the 51 can­di­dates that there was no need to “un­fair­ly dam­age your op­po­nents in or­der to win.”

“At the end of the day, we need all hands on deck. All ah we is one fam­i­ly. We must be free to make our choic­es with­out con­cern about vil­i­fi­ca­tion or con­se­quences. The on­ly con­se­quence at the end of this in­ter­nal elec­tion must be that the best per­son for each po­si­tion must evolve the win­ner and with bound­less faith in our des­tiny we take our par­ty for­ward.”

The Trinci­ty/Mal­oney MP re­mind­ed par­ty mem­bers that af­ter the elec­tion, every­one re­mains a PNM and in the PNM.

“We will need to work to­geth­er to for­ti­fy our par­ty and that be­comes dif­fi­cult if some seem hell­bent on hurt­ing oth­ers. The PNM and its lead­ers and mem­bers must re­main com­mit­ted to stand­ing firm in prin­ci­ple and truth, rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple with clar­i­ty, con­vic­tion, and dig­ni­ty—even amidst the noise and chal­lenges.”

Robin­son-Reg­is re­called that when Row­ley chal­lenged Patrick Man­ning for the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader, “I sup­port­ed Mr Man­ning and was a front­line speak­er and not one day did I see the need to speak ill of Dr Row­ley or mem­bers who chose to sup­port him.

“There was no need, as it was a con­test amongst fam­i­ly and in that case, we didn’t need to bring down one for the oth­er to win, we need­ed to high­light why it was felt that one can­di­date had the bet­ter abil­i­ty to lead at that time.”

She urged par­ty mem­bers to choose wise­ly when cast­ing their votes to­mor­row. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, for­mer so­cial de­vel­op­ment min­is­ter Don­na Cox told Guardian Me­dia she agreed with Robin­son-Reg­is’ re­marks.

“I saw her (Robin­son-Reg­is) post,” Cox said, point­ing out that she (Cox) read it at a Women’s League func­tion yes­ter­day and it re­ceived “wide ap­plause.”

“It res­onat­ed with them. I agree with her post. We are all one PNM and if so, we must ex­hib­it that.”

Cox is one of the can­di­dates in the elec­tion race.

Mean­while, long­stand­ing PNM mem­ber Ash­ton Ford said, “Just as I pre­dict­ed, the PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tion has turned out to be chaos and con­fu­sion.”

Ford said the makeshift lead­er­ship ig­nored the sug­ges­tion that the elec­tion ought to be held in Sep­tem­ber, giv­ing enough time to sani­tise the vot­ers’ list and re­or­gan­ise the par­ty groups.

“So, there is to­tal mis­trust in Sun­day’s elec­tions by mem­bers,” Ford said.

How­ev­er, he ex­pressed op­ti­mism that right-think­ing mem­bers will work to en­sure the par­ty re­turns to its pris­tine glo­ry af­ter the polls are closed.

An­a­lysts weigh in

Com­ment­ing on the in­ter­nal is­sues ahead of the elec­tion yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said the heat­ed bat­tle was no dif­fer­ent to when the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) held its in­ter­nal elec­tion last year, when they oc­cu­pied the op­po­si­tion bench­es.
Not­ing it was now a sim­i­lar wash­ing of dirty linen with­in the PNM for all to see, he said, “We are ac­tu­al­ly see­ing the PNM com­ing out and do­ing it.”
Un­will­ing to say more, he end­ed, “Clear­ly, based on what we have been hear­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly so from Pen­ny Beck­les and her team....clear­ly they are see­ing crit­i­cal chal­lenges with­in the PNM and they know they will have to deal with it.”
Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said while he un­der­stands the foun­da­tions of the PNM and the con­cept/no­tion of a fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed or­gan­i­sa­tion that Robin­son-Reg­is speaks of, she must al­so re­alise the best of fam­i­lies de­fect from the teach­ings of their foun­da­tions.
“It is the peo­ple who we be­lieve we once had the best of re­la­tion­ships with are al­most al­ways at the front of the line to say the worst about the same peo­ple they sat in fel­low­ship with,” he said.
Mo­hammed said he didn’t un­der­stand why Robin­son-Reg­iswhy would feel it would be any dif­fer­ent for the PNM, not­ing it seemed frac­tured long be­fore the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion fol­low­ing the at­tempt to foist Stu­art Young on the par­ty as its next leader fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Row­ley. 
“Is it that Mrs Robin­son-Reg­is doesn’t be­lieve that the cur­rent frac­tur­ing and dis­dain with­in the PNM was be­cause of the failed lead­er­ship of Dr Row­ley, or that his lead­er­ship se­vere­ly im­pact­ed the par­ty neg­a­tive­ly with the coun­try as col­lat­er­al dam­age?”
He said un­for­tu­nate­ly, now that Row­ley had re­tired, the hors­es had bolt­ed and the knives and dag­gers are out.
“And I doubt it will be back to nor­mal even af­ter the in­ter­nal elec­tions are over.”