Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion PNM Leader Kei­th Row­ley has placed two women–for­mer MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald–to play lead­ing roles in the PNM's fight in the Up­per and Low­er Hous­es of Par­lia­ment. Row­ley yes­ter­day named Beck­les as one of a PNM six- mem­ber Sen­ate team and as leader of the Op­po­si­tion PNM's busi­ness in the Sen­ate. Row­ley al­so named MP Mc­Don­ald as T&T's first fe­male Op­po­si­tion chief whip in the Low­er House, side-step­ping ex­pe­ri­enced MP Colm Im­bert. Im­bert, who was Gov­ern­ment chief whip in the last ad­min­is­tra­tion, ex­pressed con­cerns yes­ter­day about "the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process" in the se­lec­tion.

Row­ley an­nounced the ap­point­ments at his first me­dia brief­ing at the Op­po­si­tion's of­fice on Charles Street, Port- of-Spain. He was flanked by PNM's MPs and the six new Sen­a­tors. Ab­sent was for­mer PNM leader Patrick Man­ning. The PNM's Sen­ate team in­cludes the son and grand­sons of three promi­nent po­lit­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties as well as for­mer MPs Beck­les and Fitzger­ald Hinds among the four oth­er new faces. Beck­les fol­lows in the foot­steps of PNM's Nafeesa Mo­hammed who was PNM's Sen­ate leader in the 1995 Par­lia­ment. PNM's 2010 Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate team com­pris­es: MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son (Sen­ate leader); for­mer MP Fitzger­ald Hinds; Faris Al Rawi (son of one­time San Fer­nan­do West MP Di­ane Seuk­er­an and grand­son of late leg­endary Par­lia­men­tar­i­an Li­onel Seuk­er­an); Dr Lester Hen­ry (son of PNM stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira); Ted Roop­nar­ine (grand­son of late renowned leg­is­la­tor Ash­ford Sinanan); and, Ms Sham­fa Cud­joe, (for­mer ex­ec­u­tive as­sis­tant to To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly chief sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don.)

On the ap­point­ments, Row­ley said: "It's a mix­ture of ex­pe­ri­ence, youth, To­ba­go and Trinidad, east, north, south and cen­tral. I have con­sult­ed very wide­ly be­fore mak­ing these se­lec­tions and I have giv­en the par­ty and T&T the as­sur­ance I would choose the six best in my judg­ment who are avail­able to PNM at this time." He said Beck­les, an at­tor­ney, for­mer min­is­ter and a PNM par­ty of­fi­cial had many years of pub­lic ser­vice. She al­so was an Op­po­si­tion PNM Sen­a­tor from 1995 to 1998. Row­ley said Al Rawi, an at­tor­ney, was a Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man, act­ing HDC chair­man and for­mer mem­ber of Cab­i­net com­mit­tees. Roop­nar­ine is pres­i­dent of the South­ern As­sem­bly of Lawyers. Row­ley said Hen­ry, a UWI econ­o­mist, had pro­vid­ed PNM with much re­search. He said Cud­joe had "in­ter­est­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tions" which would serve her in very good stead in Par­lia­ment. On the ap­point­ment of Mc­Don­ald as Op­po­si­tion chief whip, Row­ley said there was a re­quire­ment for new faces in po­si­tions.

He said he would ask Im­bert to chair Par­lia­ment's Pub­lic Ac­counts com­mit­tee – a job done by the Op­po­si­tion. Row­ley would al­so se­lect some­one to chair the Pub­lic Ac­counts En­ter­pris­es Com­mit­tee

He said he ex­pect­ed that would be a for­mi­da­ble PNM team that would get the best out of the Gov­ern­ment. "To get a good gov­ern­ment, one must have a good Op­po­si­tion," he added. He said PNM's ef­fec­tive­ness would not be stymied by re­duced num­bers. He said the par­ty was aim­ing for qual­i­ty rather than quan­ti­ty. He added: "We're out­num­bered in the Low­er House but not lim­it­ed by num­ber and we'll sup­port what­ev­er is good in the Sen­ate and vig­or­ous­ly op­pose what is in­im­i­cal to T&T's in­ter­est. "It will be for the Gov­ern­ment to get the ma­jor­i­ty in the Sen­ate and to con­vince us or, fail­ing that, at least one In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor on any­thing they wish to bring." Row­ley said the PNM had to quick­ly be­gin prepar­ing for the ex­pect­ed ear­ly bud­get and fram­ing ques­tions and mo­tions for Gov­ern­ment. New House chief whip Mc­Don­ald said the ap­point­ment was "very hum­bling. I'll be putting my best foot for­ward."