Gail Alexan­der

Leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine and oth­er coun­cil mem­bers have shrugged off for­mer coun­cil chair­man Stan­ford Cal­len­dar’s call for the en­tire coun­cil to re­sign as he has done.

Cal­len­dar sent his res­ig­na­tion let­ter to David­son-Ce­les­tine on Wednes­day, stat­ing he hoped the en­tire coun­cil would re­sign fol­low­ing the crush­ing 14-1 de­feat in Mon­day’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions to the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP).

Cal­len­dar served in pol­i­tics for 35 years with the PNM, in­clud­ing as a Sen­a­tor be­tween 1992 and 1995, as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for To­ba­go West from 2001 to 2010 and as a Min­is­ter of State in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (To­ba­go Af­fairs).

He was hos­pi­talised in Oc­to­ber and af­ter be­ing dis­charged was not present dur­ing the THA cam­paign.

Cal­len­dar, in his let­ter to David­son-Ce­les­tine, said, “Af­ter se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion and some in­tro­spec­tion, and giv­en the out­come of the re­cent THA elec­tions, I have de­cid­ed to ten­der my res­ig­na­tion as chair­man of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. My de­ci­sion is to give the par­ty an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­struc­ture and re-en­gi­neer it­self go­ing for­ward.

“It is al­so my hope that the Ex­ec­u­tive of the Coun­cil will do the same. It was in­deed a plea­sure to have worked along­side Mr Kelvin Charles and your good self as po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and all my par­ty col­leagues. All best wish­es in the fu­ture.”

The PNM yes­ter­day ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of Cal­len­dar’s res­ig­na­tion let­ter, say­ing, “Mr Cal­len­dar’s com­mit­ment to the PNM is im­mea­sur­able. He was in­stru­men­tal in the de­vel­op­ment and for­mu­la­tion of the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil. Wide­ly re­gard­ed as a trust­ed el­der, many in the PNM fre­quent­ly sought Mr Cal­len­der’s wis­dom and coun­sel. Through­out his tenure, he re­mained hum­ble, ded­i­cat­ed, fo­cused and ra­tio­nal.”

Cal­len­dar didn’t re­ply to calls yes­ter­day. His hope for the coun­cil to re­sign has sparked de­bate on the mat­ter but some coun­cil mem­bers don’t agree with his view.

David­son-Ce­les­tine re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia’s queries on whether she and the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil would re­sign, say­ing: “Stan­ford does not have the au­thor­i­ty to call on any­one in the Ex­ec­u­tive of the par­ty to re­sign. He speaks for him­self.”

“He stepped down and that was his de­ci­sion and we wish him well,” she added.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil vice-chair­man De­on Isaac said Cal­len­dar is “his own man and can make his de­ci­sions and every­one’s en­ti­tled to their own opin­ions and de­ci­sions.”

But Isaac said Cal­len­dar couldn’t make de­ci­sions for PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil mem­bers.

He re­peat­ed that the ques­tion of David­son-Ce­les­tine re­sign­ing was one she had to ad­dress her­self. He said he hadn’t heard any calls in To­ba­go for coun­cil mem­bers to re­sign, be­yond Cal­len­dar’s sug­ges­tion.

The coun­cil meets on Mon­day to ex­am­ine elec­tion is­sues and the va­can­cy for chair­man due to Cal­len­dar’s res­ig­na­tion will be dis­cussed.

PNM elec­tions of­fi­cer Huey Cadette al­so said the ques­tion of whether David­son-Ce­les­tine should re­sign is one for her and mem­bers to de­cide.

Cadette said his per­son­al view on Cal­len­dar’s call was, “I don’t feel the need for whole­sale res­ig­na­tions. There’s ac­tu­al­ly need for every­one to come to­geth­er for in­tro­spec­tion and re­build­ing.”

De­feat­ed PNM can­di­date Joel Jack said he’d just got­ten word of Cal­len­dar’s let­ter and couldn’t com­ment.

For­mer Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis had no com­ment on the lead­er­ship “at this time.”

Can­di­date Ki­no McKen­zie added, “We’re fo­cused on sup­port­ing PNM’s Mi­nor­i­ty Leader (Kelvon Mor­ris) and be­ing there for To­ba­go. PNM will build back.”