Gail Alexan­der

Ex­clud­ed PNM vot­ers have got­ten a green light.The PNM's elec­tions com­mis­sion has agreed to al­low an es­ti­mat­ed 7,000 sup­port­ers of lead­er­ship chal­lenger Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son to reg­is­ter to vote in PNM's in­ter­nal poll af­ter their names were re­cent­ly ex­clud­ed from the pre­lim­i­nary vot­ing list.

PNM elec­tions com­mis­sion vice chair­man Murchi­son Browne con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion af­ter a meet­ing Thurs­day night with mem­bers of Team Pen­ny on the var­i­ous con­cerns the chal­lengers have. Thurs­day was ini­tial­ly the dead­line for fi­nal­i­sa­tion of reg­is­tra­tion is­sues. This has been ex­tend­ed to Mon­day.Browne and a le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive met mem­bers of Beck­les-Robin­son's team in­clud­ing MP Nile­ung Hy­po­lite and Ronald Boynes.

The com­mis­sion al­so agreed to rec­om­mend that in­cum­bent gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford should halt per­form­ing func­tions per­tain­ing to the elec­tion is­sue such as re­in­state­ment of the names ex­clud­ed from the pre­lim­i­nary vot­ing list.Hy­po­lite said at Thurs­day's meet­ing the group ap­pealed for the 7,000 mem­bers ex­clud­ed from the list–due to al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties ac­cord­ing to par­ty ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials–to be al­lowed to reg­u­larise their po­si­tions.

The pre­lim­i­nary list of 79,363 vot­ers was ap­proved at a re­cent Gen­er­al Coun­cil where some PNM of­fi­cials com­plained of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in vot­ers' reg­is­tra­tion. The fi­nal vot­ing list has to be ready by April 30.Af­ter the meet­ing with Team Pen­ny of­fi­cials, Browne said yes­ter­day, those whose names were not on the list could come in and check the list and reg­u­larise their sta­tus, up to Mon­day.Once this is done and they meet all cri­te­ria, they would be on the fi­nal list. He said sev­er­al peo­ple had al­ready start­ed com­ing in yes­ter­day.

Browne said the com­mis­sion meets again to­day to ex­am­ine oth­er is­sues and rec­om­men­da­tions and see how best to reach so­lu­tions for all con­cerned.Team Pen­ny mem­ber Boynes told T&T Guardian the com­mis­sion agreed to en­sure pro­ce­dures so that the gen­er­al sec­re­tary could re­in­state those names that were re­ject­ed or left out.

Boynes said the group will al­so write the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the de­vel­op­ment. But he said the group made it clear to Browne that they did not want gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ford to han­dle any re­in­state­ment of the 7,000 who were left out of the list.He said the com­mis­sion said they would rec­om­mend that he does not per­form any func­tion like that. Boynes said the group had con­cerns about all the in­cum­bent of­fi­cers be­ing in­volved in the elec­tion ex­er­cise, but the most crit­i­cal one was Ford.

He said his group took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press con­cerns about their view that two mem­bers of the com­mis­sion have been cam­paign­ing for the slate of in­cum­bent leader Kei­th Row­ley. He said the com­mis­sion al­so agreed to ad­dress that.Boynes said the com­mis­sion agreed to re­spond to all let­ters sent to them.Hy­po­lite said Team Pen­ny al­so asked for a copy of the elec­toral list to be sent to all can­di­dates–in­cum­bent, chal­lengers, in­de­pen­dents.

He said the group al­so ap­pealed for the in­cum­bent of­fi­cers who are con­test­ing posts not to han­dle elec­tion is­sues, al­though the Gen­er­al Coun­cil re­cent­ly ruled that all par­ty of­fi­cers re­main in posts un­til elec­tion day. Hy­po­lite said PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ford for in­stance shouldn't be mak­ing de­ci­sions or pro­nounce­ments on the elec­tion or is­su­ing things for units.

Hy­po­lite said while the group has no is­sue with peo­ple or coun­cil­lors en­dors­ing con­tes­tants, they want units and par­ty ex­ec­u­tives to re­frain from what has been oc­cur­ring in re­cent weeks–pub­licly en­dors­ing peo­ple and lob­by­ing on that ba­sis.Team Pen­ny is al­so mon­i­tor­ing oth­er is­sues in­clud­ing a lim­it­ed num­ber of vot­ing sta­tions in some dis­tricts like San­gre Grande which has on­ly one. Ford didn't an­swer calls yes­ter­day.