PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley was the one who had sug­gest­ed the San Fer­nan­do East walk­a­bout which brought him pub­licly to­geth­er with past leader Patrick Man­ning re­cent­ly, ac­cord­ing to act­ing par­ty gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford. Ford said he planned and ex­e­cut­ed the re­cent walk­a­bout which brought the past and present PNM lead­ers to­geth­er. Ford con­firmed his role in the ef­fort yes­ter­day as he pre­pared to con­test the gen­er­al sec­re­tary's post in PNM par­ty elec­tions on March 20. He is con­test­ing against PNM ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Fos­ter Cum­mings.

Ford joined the PNM Youth League in 1968 and has served on all par­ty units and com­mit­tees. A coun­cil­lor at 26, he was al­so the youngest may­or at age 29 and was Ari­ma MP in 1981. He served in more than five min­istries and as at­tache to the Lon­don High Com­mis­sion­er up to 2010. He al­so worked in the me­dia. On the re­cent Pleas­antville walk­a­bout, Ford said this fol­lowed the se­ries of tours PNM start­ed re­cent­ly. "We said he had to go South al­so and Dr Row­ley said San Fer­nan­do East," he said. "As gen­er­al sec­re­tary, I was co-or­di­nat­ing the walk­a­bouts so it fell to me to or­gan­ise San Fer­nan­do East. "I went on a Tues­day and spoke with the chair­man (Tina Gron­lund-Nunez) and lat­er met the MP, Mr Man­ning.

"Mr Man­ning was very re­cep­tive to the idea...he was ex­cel­lent and he in­di­cat­ed he would co-op­er­ate ful­ly to fa­cil­i­tate the ini­tia­tive. San Fer­nan­do East did every­thing to plan. "Dr Row­ley told me to re­ly on Mr Man­ning's ex­pe­ri­ence in plan­ning the walk­a­bout. "Af­ter the walk­a­bout, Dr Row­ley told me we should and main­tain the high stan­dard of the San Fer­nan­do East walk­a­bout-he said it was the best or­gan­ised one he'd gone on and he was very sat­is­fied with how every­thing worked out. "Mr Man­ning al­so said it was a good and that every­thing was well ex­e­cut­ed."

On the gen­er­al sec­re­tary's role, Ford said: "For the fu­ture, the lead­er­ship will forge a new di­rec­tion and I'll com­ply...We have a new team and strate­gic plan." Ford said he wasn't on any slate. "As Ash­ton Ford, I"m PNM first, sec­ond and third and I sup­port who­ev­er the leader is," he said. Ford's op­po­nent Cum­mings is cur­rent­ly PNM's field of­fi­cer on the par­ty ex­ec­u­tive and has been in the par­ty for more than 23 years. He was youth of­fi­cer (male) pre­vi­ous­ly. Cum­mings had been a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor when the PNM was in of­fice and had been a PNM gen­er­al coun­cil mem­ber for more than 20 years.