Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) held a spe­cial gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing yes­ter­day to dis­cuss four rec­om­men­da­tions which were adopt­ed by the coun­cil. PNM chair­man Franklin Khan said it was a red-let­ter day. "We have con­tin­ued our ma­jor de­moc­ra­ti­sa­tion process and our chang­ing im­age and face to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, in­di­cat­ing we are ready, will­ing and able to take back the gov­er­nance of Trinidad and To­ba­go," he said.

The par­ty will now in­sti­tute a one man, one vote sys­tem for the elec­tion of of­fi­cers in­clud­ing the po­lit­i­cal leader, chair­man, vice-chair­man, gen­er­al sec­re­tary and oth­er of­fi­cers. Khan was speak­ing to the me­dia at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day. He said the use of the par­ty sym­bol, the bal­isi­er, was not a con­sti­tu­tion­al mat­ter and should be con­sid­ered as a mat­ter of brand­ing and mar­ket­ing. The du­ra­tion of of­fi­cers has al­so been changed, Khan said.

The po­lit­i­cal leader, chair­man, vice-chair­man and gen­er­al sec­re­tary will now serve four years in­stead of five and all oth­er of­fi­cers will serve for two years in­stead of one year. The po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader, To­ba­go Coun­cil, will be an elect­ed one and Khan said that per­son will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be­come the deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.