Gail Alexan­der

Af­ter re­tain­ing chair­man­ship of Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) Ari­ma Women's League unit on Thurs­day, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son says she will of­fer her­self as a 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­date for the par­ty.Beck­les-Robin­son re­vealed her in­ten­tion while ad­dress­ing the women's league's elec­tion of of­fi­cers' con­fer­ence at the PNM's Ari­ma of­fice on Gu­napo Street. She al­so con­firmed this in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian af­ter the meet­ing.

Beck­les-Robin­son, who had chaired the women's unit be­fore, was re-elect­ed to the post in a vote of 102 to 13. She de­feat­ed Hillary Bernard, a coun­cil­lor who is pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of PNM's Na­tion­al Women's League. Women's League mem­bers said Beck­les-Robin­son told the meet­ing she would of­fer her­self as a gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­date. They said she al­so dis­pelled ru­mours that she was "leav­ing the PNM and form­ing her own par­ty."

The elec­tion to the post of chair­man for the Ari­ma Women's League was Beck­les-Robin­son's first vic­to­ry af­ter her May de­feat for elec­tions for the post of PNM leader. This was re­tained by in­cum­bent Dr Kei­th Row­ley.Beck­les-Robin­son had chaired the Ari­ma Women's League for al­most a decade be­fore. She al­so serves on the ex­ec­u­tive of PNM's Ari­ma unit.

Af­ter Thurs­day's meet­ing, a buoy­ant Beck­les-Robin­son said, "There was a good at­ten­dance for the meet­ing, tra­di­tion­al­ly we have a good turnout but we've shown in Ari­ma that we have a lot of sup­port. It's a good in­di­ca­tion for gen­er­al elec­tions, as the women are the back­bone of the PNM."I'm hap­py the (women) gave that sup­port, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing the re­sults of the par­ty's re­cent in­ter­nal (lead­er­ship) elec­tion.

Asked if she has been work­ing in the con­stituen­cy af­ter the in­ter­nal elec­tion and if she is in­ter­act­ing with Elvin Ed­wards, who was ap­point­ed–af­ter the lead­er­ship elec­tions–to be co-or­di­na­tor of the con­stituen­cy, Beck­les-Robin­son said she is on the Ari­ma ex­ec­u­tive and Ed­wards was very much part of the op­er­a­tion."So we meet when there are ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions, I'm la­dy vice chair­man of Ari­ma's con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive and work with all PN­Mites in the area, in­clud­ing the may­or and cor­po­ra­tion."

On claims she and mem­bers of her for­mer Team Pen­ny (which con­test­ed the in­ter­nal poll) were os­tracised by the hi­er­ar­chy and may leave the PNM or "park up," she said, "I re­main firm­ly com­mit­ted to the PNM. I'm out there work­ing for the par­ty and do­ing my part to en­sure the PNM does well in Ari­ma."Asked if she was in­ter­est­ed in elec­tion can­di­da­cy, Beck­les-Robin­son not­ed the PNM's Gen­er­al Coun­cil very re­cent­ly an­nounced it would start screen­ing for can­di­dates for 12 seats, but not Ari­ma yet.

She added, "Ari­ma isn't in the first lot, but when the time comes and Ari­ma is called and if there's sup­port, then sure I'll of­fer my­self. But I'm not work­ing on that yet, as the cur­rent fo­cus is on con­stituen­cy elec­tions and for elec­tions of oth­er units."

On how she dealt with the fall-out fol­low­ing the May lead­er­ship elec­tions, Beck­les-Robin­son said, "The elec­tion is over but when one en­ters such con­tests, one does so know­ing on­ly one per­son can win and that oth­ers may lose, so we knew very well there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty of los­ing. If you ap­proach it like that, there's no rea­son to be an­gry or neg­a­tive about the re­sults."My loy­al­ty has been and al­ways will be to the PNM. I re­main com­mit­ted to the par­ty and help­ing the leader and lead­er­ship, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions," she said.

Asked when last she in­ter­act­ed with Row­ley, Beck­les-Robin­son said she went to the Par­lia­ment for the Low­er House de­bate on the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill to sup­port the PNM and lead­er­ship on the is­sue.