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Sunday, July 13, 2025

PNM to make announcement on internal polls tomorrow

by

268 days ago
20241018
PNM general secretary Foster Cummings responds to questions from Guardian Media outside Parliament yesterday.

PNM general secretary Foster Cummings responds to questions from Guardian Media outside Parliament yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

An an­nounce­ment about the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) re­cent­ly can­celled in­ter­nal elec­tions is ex­pect­ed to be made to­mor­row.

One week ago, there was a sud­den an­nounce­ment that the par­ty’s 51st An­nu­al Con­ven­tion and the in­ter­nal elec­tion, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for No­vem­ber 17, had been can­celled. No ex­pla­na­tion was giv­en for the can­cel­la­tion.

On the day of the an­nounce­ment, PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings evad­ed ques­tions about the can­cel­la­tion and would on­ly say that his an­nounce­ment was suf­fi­cient.

How­ev­er, as he made his way in­to the Red House yes­ter­day the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP of­fered a bit more.

“The Gen­er­al Coun­cil meets on Sat­ur­day, any fur­ther com­ments will come af­ter that,” he said.

Cum­mings was asked if he could give a com­mit­ment that the elec­tion will be held soon but he in­stead fo­cused on the an­nu­al con­ven­tion.

“The PNM al­ways has con­ven­tions, the par­tic­u­lar one we had a de­ci­sion was tak­en on that, but we will speak af­ter Gen­er­al Coun­cil,” he said as he made his way on­to the Red House’s com­pound.

The can­cel­la­tion of the par­ty’s in­ter­nal has fu­elled spec­u­la­tion about an ear­ly gen­er­al elec­tion.

At the PNM’s La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro 10th Con­stituen­cy Con­fer­ence last month, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley shrugged off Op­po­si­tion spec­u­la­tion about a snap elec­tion and stat­ed that the par­ty’s an­nu­al con­ven­tion had to take place first.

“They were even call­ing the elec­tion in No­vem­ber, well No­vem­ber we will have the con­fer­ence, that is the pos­si­ble date for the con­fer­ence, so not elec­tions,” he had said then.

Spec­u­la­tion about who will re­place Row­ley as PNM leader was fur­ther fu­elled when he wrapped up his con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate by say­ing: “I don’t know how much longer I would have in this Par­lia­ment but I have done my du­ty and I kept the course. I have run the race and I look for­ward, not for a pot of gold but for my fam­i­ly at the end of this rain­bow.”

Sev­er­al names have been thrown out as po­ten­tial can­di­dates in the lead­er­ship race, in­clud­ing Stu­art Young, SC, Pene­lope Beck­les, Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne and Fos­ter Cum­mings.


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