Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

PNM's par­ty chair­man Franklin Khan says his par­ty is ready for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions when it is called lat­er this year, hav­ing com­plet­ed screen­ing in eight out of 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions.Speak­ing at a PNM pub­lic meet­ing at Ed­in­burgh 500 Recre­ation Ground in Ch­agua­nas on Tues­day night, Khan ex­pressed con­fi­dence that po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley will lead the PNM to vic­to­ry in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion. He said since the PNM's crush­ing de­feat in 2010, there have been some po­lit­i­cal "soul search­ing."

"We looked at the con­sti­tu­tion of the par­ty and had pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion with writ­ers and in­de­pen­dent thinkers. They said the PNM is no longer at­trac­tive. We set up a con­sti­tu­tion­al re­view team and in De­cem­ber we had a spe­cial con­ven­tion where we re­vised the par­ty's con­sti­tu­tion," Khan said.He added that the PNM set up a strate­gic re­view team to deal with the is­sues.

"We have had con­sul­ta­tions as we re­viewed the strate­gic plan for T&T," Khan said.Among the con­sti­tu­tion­al changes made were a one-man one-vote elec­toral sys­tem and the elim­i­na­tion of ve­to pow­ers of the po­lit­i­cal leader in the screen­ing process."It is with joy in my heart that I re­port that no po­lit­i­cal leader can now flip­pant­ly dis­miss the can­di­dates choice of the ex­ec­u­tive of the var­i­ous con­stituen­cies," Khan said.

"Our par­ty has been work­ing on a strate­gic plan, we have re­vised our con­sti­tu­tion and we have a pro­gramme called the con­stituen­cy mod­erni­sa­tion ex­er­cise which is cur­rent­ly be­ing con­duct­ed, so rest as­sured that the par­ty is work­ing to have vic­to­ry in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls in 2013," Khan said.

Mean­while, PNM's labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus called on sup­port­ers to work to­geth­er to win the elec­tions. She said the "PNM is the on­ly sta­ble, co­he­sive and sure par­ty which un­der­stands the prin­ci­ples and con­cept of good gov­er­nance."Say­ing the PNM is on a path of re­new­al and resur­gence, Bap­tiste-Primus warned that the road to elec­toral vic­to­ry was not easy.

She added that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship was en­trenched in nepo­tism as friends, rel­a­tives and sup­port­ers of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were be­ing ap­point­ed to state boards.She named sev­er­al boards where im­pro­pri­ety al­leged­ly oc­curred. Bap­tiste-Primus said un­der the PNM, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions and busi­ness as­so­ci­a­tions were vo­cal in crit­i­cisms but un­der the PP, their si­lence was deaf­en­ing.

She said: "This coun­try is slow­ly be­ing de­stroyed, yet they opt for si­lence. What val­ues are you pass­ing to chil­dren and grand­chil­dren?"She called on the PNM sup­port­ers to "close ranks" and bring home an elec­toral vic­to­ry.