Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

New­ly elect­ed Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis said her first mis­sion at the helm will be a mem­ber­ship dri­ve.

She said a “high turnout” in Sun­day’s in­ter­nal polls au­gurs well for the PNM and it was im­por­tant to re­vi­talise the par­ty groups to ex­pand the fam­i­ly.

Cud­joe-Lewis com­fort­ably de­feat­ed for­mer mi­nor­i­ty leader Kelvon Mor­ris for the lead­er­ship post, gain­ing 63 per cent of the votes in the in­ter­nal elec­tions.

The ex-To­ba­go West MP, who ran in­de­pen­dent, gained 1,228 votes com­pared to 730 for Mor­ris, who led the Team Uni­ty slate.

There was an­oth­er big win for in­de­pen­dents with Nicole Hen­ry elect­ed chair­man over Team Uni­ty’s Charles Smith and fel­low in­de­pen­dent Ryan Joe­field.

It took al­most eight painstak­ing hours of vote-count­ing be­fore the ex-sports min­is­ter was named the win­ner just af­ter 2 am yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Bal­lot-count­ing re­sumed at 4 pm yes­ter­day to fill the oth­er 15 va­cant po­si­tions on the ex­ec­u­tive.

At the par­ty head­quar­ters af­ter be­ing an­nounced win­ner, a smil­ing Cud­joe-Lewis was con­grat­u­lat­ed by ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 sup­port­ers, in­clud­ing her cam­paign man­ag­er Garth Ben­jamin.

It was a low-key af­fair sim­i­lar to nom­i­na­tion day when Cud­joe-Lewis came by her­self to file her pa­pers while her op­po­nent had a grand en­trance com­plete with dancers.

How­ev­er, on that day she re­mind­ed the pub­lic, “My peo­ple is Kelvon peo­ple, Kelvon peo­ple is my peo­ple.”

She said she de­lib­er­ate­ly ran a fru­gal cam­paign as she was now un­em­ployed fol­low­ing her de­feat in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The for­mer sports min­is­ter said peo­ple grav­i­tat­ed to her be­cause of her in­tegri­ty and per­son­al­i­ty.

“We have to make sure our par­ty mem­bers know what par­ty groups they are in and get those func­tion­ing again. Par­ty groups serve as a lit­tle hub, but more so a lit­tle fam­i­ly in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

While she did meet some de­trac­tors, she said her “good name” won their hearts.

“Peo­ple say yuh loss yuh seat and you ain’t come out with no mon­ey...For me, I came out with my good name.

“If in 16 years of front­line pol­i­tics all you could say is I went Ba­hamas and for­got to take off my roam­ing then I could take ‘Roam­ing Sham­fa’ – but you could nev­er call me no liar or no thief.”

In 2017, Cud­joe-Lewis, then tourism min­is­ter, racked up a $59,000 roam­ing bill in four days while at­tend­ing the Caribbean Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s Caribbean Trav­el Mar­ket­place in Nas­sau.

De­spite claims of a strong turnout, the num­ber of vot­ers were just 40 per cent of the 2020 in­ter­nals when 5,000 mem­bers took part in elect­ing an ex­ec­u­tive.

In that elec­tions, the Coun­cil said there were 10,000 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers, the same num­ber claimed in 2026.

Ex­tends olive branch

As she had preached on the cam­paign trail, Cud­joe-Lewis called for har­mo­ny and heal­ing among mem­bers.

She ex­tend­ed an olive branch to Mor­ris and even the par­ty big­wigs who en­dorsed his can­di­da­cy.

She said she in­tends to en­gage all the can­di­dates and lean on the knowl­edge of the vet­er­ans in the PNM.

“I want to work with Kelvon Mor­ris. I want to work with every­body who would have of­fered them­selves.

“So many oth­er stal­warts who would have sup­port­ed Kelvon, and I am will­ing to work, will­ing to lis­ten, will­ing to learn and will­ing to get down and get the job done.

“I can­not do it alone.”

Mor­ris’ can­di­da­cy was backed by Charles, for­mer PNM To­ba­go leader Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine, and a num­ber of ex-sec­re­taries, in­clud­ing Clarence Ja­cob and Huey Cadette.

Sup­port from Pen­ny

PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les yes­ter­day con­grat­u­lat­ed Cud­joe-Lewis, whose vic­to­ry au­to­mat­i­cal­ly makes her one of the par­ty’s deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers.

Beck­les said, “Cud­joe-Lewis has made his­to­ry, be­com­ing on­ly the sec­ond woman to hold this po­si­tion at a time when the move­ment is in a crit­i­cal phase of re­build­ing...She comes ready, com­mit­ted to en­er­gis­ing our move­ment as we re-en­gage the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, guid­ed by the strength and per­spec­tive of women’s lead­er­ship.

Re­flect­ing on Cud­joe-Lewis’ ca­reer, Beck­les said her new deputy has vast ex­pe­ri­ence serv­ing in sev­er­al spheres, which will au­gur well for the To­ba­go move­ment.

“She en­tered front­line pol­i­tics as the youngest To­bag­on­ian ap­point­ed to the Sen­ate in 2010, dur­ing my tenure as Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness in the Sen­ate. She has since served this na­tion with dis­tinc­tion as a MP for ten years and as a Cab­i­net Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Tourism, Youth, Sport, and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment.”

She said Cud­joe-Lewis brings a wealth of knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence which will aid in the re­uni­fi­ca­tion of the Coun­cil.

Beck­les thanked Mor­ris for his ser­vice to the par­ty and al­so hailed all the oth­er can­di­dates.

In a Face­book post, Mor­ris said his cam­paign was nev­er sole­ly about win­ning and said he re­mained com­mit­ted to the PNM and To­bag­o­ni­ans.

Out­go­ing leader An­cil Den­nis con­grat­u­lat­ed his suc­ces­sor and the new ex­ec­u­tive in a so­cial me­dia post. He al­so pledged his con­tin­ued sup­port for the par­ty.