Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Two mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive re­signed yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the re­lease of a state­ment on Thurs­day, in the ex­ec­u­tive’s name, crit­i­cis­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning.

The res­ig­na­tions came even as PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les re­it­er­at­ed his warn­ing against pub­lic in­fight­ing, say­ing he would per­son­al­ly re­mind the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive to fol­low the par­ty lead­er­ship’s guid­ance.

“The par­ty will not re­spond to the San Fer­nan­do East state­ment. But my state­ment stands, and I’ll let them know per­son­al­ly,” Gon­za­les said yes­ter­day.

The ex­ec­u­tive’s state­ment was is­sued in re­sponse to com­ments made by Man­ning on Tues­day, in which he ex­pressed con­cern over what he de­scribed as in­ad­e­quate ac­tion on is­sues raised by con­stituen­cy mem­bers and con­veyed to the par­ty’s lead­er­ship. Some of those con­cerns in­volved con­stituen­cy chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is.

Fol­low­ing Man­ning’s com­ments, Gon­za­les out­lined steps be­ing tak­en by the par­ty to ad­dress the mat­ter and urged all par­ties to re­frain from en­gag­ing in pub­lic al­le­ga­tions and counter-al­le­ga­tions.

How­ev­er, hours af­ter Gon­za­les’ ap­peal, the San Fer­nan­do East ex­ec­u­tive re­leased a state­ment de­fend­ing Alex­is and crit­i­cis­ing Man­ning, in­clud­ing his per­for­mance as the con­stituen­cy’s par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

Ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers re­sign

Yes­ter­day, two of the ex­ec­u­tive’s 12 com­mit­tee mem­bers ten­dered their res­ig­na­tions in let­ters ad­dressed to con­stituen­cy sec­re­tary Abi­gail Cox.

One mem­ber wrote: “Please ac­cept my for­mal res­ig­na­tion from the post of com­mit­tee mem­ber of the PNM San Fer­nan­do East Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive. I thank you and the oth­er mem­bers of the Ex­ec­u­tive for wel­com­ing me and for the in­valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence gained dur­ing my tenure.”

The sec­ond stat­ed: “With im­me­di­ate ef­fect, kind­ly ac­cept my res­ig­na­tion as a com­mit­tee mem­ber. I wish to thank the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve and for the in­valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Cox for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful last evening.

How­ev­er, sources fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter claimed that sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers were up­set be­cause the state­ment on Thurs­day was is­sued with­out their knowl­edge or ap­proval and that they on­ly be­came aware of it af­ter it had been re­leased pub­licly.

Alex­is did not re­spond to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia re­gard­ing claims that ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers were not in­formed of the state­ment be­fore its re­lease or what ac­tion, if any, the ex­ec­u­tive had tak­en since.

Man­ning yes­ter­day de­clined to com­ment on the res­ig­na­tions.

Mean­while, Gon­za­les de­nied sug­ges­tions that the par­ty lead­er­ship had in­struct­ed any­one to re­sign.

No-con­fi­dence mo­tion re­port­ed­ly fails

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day, Man­ning said he was in­formed of an un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt to bring a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against him dur­ing a meet­ing on Thurs­day night.

“I’m told it was shout­ed down by peo­ple and didn’t reach a vote,” he said.

The ex­ec­u­tive’s pub­lic state­ment fol­lowed short­ly af­ter­wards.

Alex­is al­so did not re­spond yes­ter­day to ques­tions about the re­port­ed mo­tion, or whether the ex­ec­u­tive in­tend­ed to com­ply with Gon­za­les’ call to stop dis­cussing the mat­ter pub­licly.

Man­ning said he took par­tic­u­lar ex­cep­tion to the ex­ec­u­tive’s state­ment ref­er­enc­ing his de­ceased fa­ther, for­mer prime min­is­ter and for­mer San Fer­nan­do East MP Patrick Man­ning.

Call­ing for Alex­is to be re­moved as chair­man, Man­ning said the par­ty leader had the au­thor­i­ty to ask any con­stituen­cy chair­man to step aside.

“This is­sue could have been han­dled bet­ter. I’ve used every av­enue with­in the par­ty to bring these mat­ters to the lead­er­ship. They were sim­ply ig­nored,” he said.

Gon­za­les: “I’m dis­ap­point­ed”

Asked about the con­tin­ued pub­lic ex­changes de­spite his call for re­straint ear­li­er this week, Gon­za­les said he was dis­sat­is­fied with the sit­u­a­tion.

“I’m very dis­ap­point­ed and dis­heart­ened,” he said.

“But my re­solve re­mains un­shak­en. I’ll re­mind the par­ties of my state­ment and call up­on them to im­me­di­ate­ly de­sist from pub­lic com­men­tary on the mat­ter, al­low the au­tho­rised process­es to take their course, and recog­nise that con­tin­ued pub­lic en­gage­ment will dam­age both the con­stituen­cy and the par­ty.”

For­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford said yes­ter­day that the dis­pute would not have es­ca­lat­ed un­der pre­vi­ous par­ty lead­ers.

“This wouldn’t have hap­pened un­der oth­er lead­ers. If this con­tin­ues and the lead­er­ship doesn’t get up and act prompt­ly, the PNM will be go­ing down the road to dis­as­ter, with peo­ple do­ing their own thing,” Ford said.

“You can’t have Mar­vin as chair­man say­ing one thing and peo­ple sim­ply ig­nor­ing it.”

Ford said par­ty of­fi­cials need­ed to en­gage mem­bers di­rect­ly rather than at­tempt to man­age prob­lems from a dis­tance.

“They have to call peo­ple in and talk with them. That’s how we op­er­at­ed un­der Er­ic Williams’ train­ing. But they’re stay­ing in of­fices, giv­ing in­struc­tions and think­ing that suf­fices. It won’t.”

He added: “I’m see­ing the whole place in dis­ar­ray. I don’t know where it will end up. But PN­Mites like my­self, Mar­i­lyn Gor­don and oth­ers can’t sit around and watch the PNM dis­in­te­grate. We have to take ac­tion to pro­tect the par­ty.”

Le Hunte urges re­straint

PNM trea­sur­er Robert Le Hunte yes­ter­day de­fend­ed the par­ty’s han­dling of the dis­pute and urged mem­bers to al­low in­ter­nal process­es to work.

“Against that back­ground, all mem­bers, re­gard­less of the strength of their in­di­vid­ual views, have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­spect the process and al­low it to work,” he said.

“That re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ap­plies equal­ly to all sides. Once a mat­ter has been placed be­fore the par­ty’s es­tab­lished or­gans and those process­es are ac­tive­ly en­gaged, con­tin­ued pub­lic ex­changes risk shift­ing the fo­cus from res­o­lu­tion to con­fronta­tion.”

Le Hunte said re­straint was now in the best in­ter­ests of the con­stituen­cy, the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved and the par­ty.

“Mr Man­ning and Ms Alex­is both hold im­por­tant po­si­tions with­in the PNM. They are en­ti­tled, as is every mem­ber, to raise con­cerns through the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion­al struc­tures.

“Equal­ly, hav­ing in­voked those struc­tures, there is a cor­re­spond­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­spect the process and ul­ti­mate­ly the de­ci­sions of the par­ty’s ap­pro­pri­ate or­gans.”

PNM Trinci­ty par­ty group 39 is­sues

For­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford yes­ter­day al­lud­ed to is­sues in oth­er PNM con­stituen­cies where ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions are on.

He said a con­stituen­cy was sup­posed to meet on Tues­day for their an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing, they re­ceived in­struc­tions not to miss it, but it got can­celled “just so.”

PNM ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials didn’t com­ment on the is­sue. But TG was in­formed that Par­ty Group 39 in Trinci­ty Mal­oney was due to have a meet­ing which was lat­er can­celled due to is­sues with con­duct­ing the meet­ing. It re­sult­ed in the Group’s de­mand on Tues­day for re­fund of $2,540 which had been paid to the par­ty as fees for new mem­ber­ships.