GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings have shot back at de­trac­tors who have spec­u­lat­ed that there is di­vi­sion with­in the par­ty by re­in­forc­ing that it is strong and unit­ed.

“I say here tonight (Sat­ur­day) to all of the naysay­ers and all of those who are try­ing to get in­volved in the PNM’s busi­ness, you will not suc­ceed be­cause we know what we are about and we know that we are an in­clu­sive par­ty and we know what our task al­ways is and that task is to pro­tect Trinidad and To­ba­go and to de­vel­op it,” Young said as he ad­dressed the au­di­ence while speak­ing at the par­ty’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, on Sat­ur­day.

Young said un­for­tu­nate­ly, there are some in so­ci­ety who would like “to eat away at these cel­e­bra­tions that we have and they would like to di­vide us on the lines of race, on the lines of re­li­gion et cetera.”

There have been ques­tions over the fu­ture lead­er­ship of the PNM, af­ter leader and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley sug­gest­ed dur­ing the re­cent Bud­get de­bate that he may be close to bow­ing out of pol­i­tics.

Young, Fos­ter Cum­mings, Amery Browne and Pen­ne­lope Beck­les are names raised as po­ten­tial suc­ces­sors to Row­ley.

How­ev­er, Young is said to be Row­ley’s pre­ferred “heir,” a sit­u­a­tion which the Op­po­si­tion as­sert­ed last week was caus­ing bac­cha­nal in Bal­isi­er House, adding a “house di­vid­ed” can­not stand.

Last Mon­day, Row­ley added fu­el to the dis­cus­sion when he ap­point­ed Young, who is al­so En­er­gy Min­is­ter, to act as Prime Min­is­ter for the third time, as he left for the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in Samoa.

This de­spite the fact that Young was ad­mon­ished days be­fore by the House Speak­er for his re­cent sala­cious com­ment to­wards Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate and was forced to apol­o­gise to the House.

But dur­ing his speech at the Di­vali func­tion on Sat­ur­day, Young told the au­di­ence he was “blessed” to serve.

“I am proud to stand here tonight as a sim­ple cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go who has been blessed with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve the peo­ple, not on­ly of this great par­ty but of our beloved twin is­land state and to say that we in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, with­out a shad­ow of a doubt and with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion, will con­tin­ue to pro­tect Trinidad and To­ba­go and its de­vel­op­ment and its in­clu­siv­i­ty,” Young said.

He added, “I ask all of our mem­bers of our great par­ty to work with us as we con­tin­ue to do so.”

He al­so paid glow­ing trib­ute to the Prime Min­is­ter, who Young said “took du­ty be­fore self once again.”

“...What we have pro­vid­ed for the last ten years is sta­bil­i­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go in a dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od, while con­tin­u­ing to build and to de­vel­op it for the fu­ture...and that could on­ly hap­pen un­der the as­tute, wise lead­er­ship of our leader, who con­tin­ues to do the peo­ple’s busi­ness in far off Samoa,” Young said, as he al­so not­ed Row­ley cel­e­brat­ed his 75th birth­day last week.

Elec­tions for the po­lit­i­cal leader post are due in 2026.

Cum­mings: Healthy democ­ra­cy at work

PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings has dis­missed ru­mours that Young has al­ready been anoint­ed by Row­ley as the par­ty’s next leader.

He said as far as he is con­cerned, Row­ley is the leader of the PNM and al­so Prime Min­is­ter.

“So there is no va­can­cy in that of­fice,” he told mem­bers of the me­dia when asked about the is­sue dur­ing the par­ty’s Di­vali func­tion.

On whether he be­lieved there was any dis­cord with­in the par­ty ,Cum­mings, like Young, main­tained this was not the case.

“Noth­ing oth­er than the usu­al, healthy democ­ra­cy at work. Peo­ple some­times have dif­fer­ent opin­ions at times on how things should be han­dled. That is ev­i­dent in any or­gan­i­sa­tion that you are in,” he said, adding that the par­ty will cel­e­brate 69 years in Jan­u­ary.

Cum­mings said the PNM was al­so very “struc­tured and or­gan­ised,” say­ing its Gen­er­al Coun­cil “is a place where peo­ple voice their opin­ions.”

“At the end of the day, the ma­jor­i­ty makes a de­ci­sion and we all abide by it and that is the democ­ra­cy of the PNM,” he main­tained, adding that the PNM is “alive and well.”