I write in response to the headlined story "Trouble in Arima." The only trouble in Arima is that a small group of people insist on attempting to hold the party to ransom with their demands for Ms Penelope Beckles Robinson to be the candidate for Arima.
Any how you cut it or dice it, it is a small group insisting on having their own way. The purported signatures of the 27 party group chairmen in reality represent at most only a miniscule number of people, out of the more than 26,000 registered voters in Arima and it could very well only represent 27. You see, as a member of a very active party group, with 25 registered members; our average attendance at any meeting is 15. Even the Arima Constituency, at its group representative meeting in the height of its emotional upheaval could have only mustered up a paltry 15 members. So those 27 purported signatures appended to the document really say very little.
More than that, some of the people whose signature appears on the petition have indicated that when they placed their signature on the sheet, it was not in rejection of the named candidate, Mr Garcia.
Mr Cassimire and Mr Bobby Charles are correct–the PNM supporters in Arima want to put this behind them. Their focus now is to win the seat for the People's National Movement. It is the sentiment expressed on the ground; it is what is communicated to Mr Anthony Garcia as he walks the constituency from Aripo to La Fillette; from Santa Rosa to Calvary. And it is what Ms Pennelope Beckles-Robinson should be communicating to her few disgruntled followers if she is genuine when she says she continues to support her party.
Why is Mrs Pennelope Beckles-Robinson not instructing her black-clad subjects that it is time to end their silliness and ensure that the PNM wins Arima? Is it that she believes that the only way she can serve the party is by being the Member of Parliament for Arima? Or is it that she feels that the screening committee will change its mind about the selected candidate? Do the sensible thing Penny and call off your few!
Kendall Delpino
Arima