Guardian senior political reporter Gail Alexander highlighted yesterday in her column that a pressure group by the name "To Preserve the Balisier" (TPTB) has emerged inside the PNM. This group's spokesman is Dr Bhose Sharma, who was the unsuccessful PNM candidate for St Augustine in the 2010 general election.Ms Alexander, whose news reports earlier in the week pointed to the emergence of this group, has highlighted the fact that the PNM internal elections carded for 2014 will be a contested affair.
The issue of a contested leadership election is nothing new, as former Port-of-Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing had indicated a desire to challenge his leader before he was removed as mayor by virtue of his name not being placed on the list of potential PNM aldermen for the local government elections.Former senator Pennelope Beckles-Robinson had also given a hint that she too was considering a challenge against Dr Rowley. Like Mr Lee Sing, she has been removed, in the reshuffle of senators that took place earlier in the week.
In her column, Ms Alexander indicated that her sources had told her that new PNM Senator Diane Baldeo-Chadeesingh is tipped to be the party's candidate for Fyzabad.As far as the other new face on the PNM bench in the Senate, Avinash Singh, is concerned, one would imagine that he would contest Chaguanas West again, seeing that the view has been expressed that the Senate is regarded by the PNM as a training ground for future members of the House of Representatives.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/digital/new-members