Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne has with­drawn his name from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s nom­i­na­tion process for Diego Mar­tin West, which cur­rent MP and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will va­cate soon.

This was con­firmed in his with­draw­al let­ter sent to the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive around 6.30 pm yes­ter­day.

This, as busi­ness­man/me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Hans De Vi­gnes was lead­ing the race of six nom­i­nees in­volved in the process—in­clud­ing Browne—where sup­port from the con­stituen­cy par­ty group units was con­cerned.

It was con­firmed that the par­ty group sup­port for the nom­i­nees, up to yes­ter­day evening, were Des Vi­gnes (sup­port­ed by nine par­ty groups), Browne (ze­ro), ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary Cur­tis Tou­s­saint (ze­ro), ex­ec­u­tive la­dy vice chair­man Yokym­ma Bethelmy (ze­ro), ex­ec­u­tive field of­fi­cer Le­si­di Fe­lix (ze­ro) and An­na Suleiman (ze­ro).

The Diego Mar­tin West seat has been held by Row­ley since 1991 but he an­nounced his de­ci­sion to re­tire af­ter 45 years in pub­lic life on Jan­u­ary 3. He said he would re­sign as prime min­is­ter and not seek re-elec­tion as the can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy in this year’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

Browne, who was PNM’s Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP from 2007 to 2010, be­came a fo­cus of at­ten­tion af­ter re­marks in the 2025 Bud­get de­bate last Oc­to­ber. Speak­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Browne, a sen­a­tor, had quipped that he was not a fre­quent vis­i­tor to the House “…but I once was, and who knows what the fu­ture holds.”

Asked sub­se­quent­ly about his plans, Browne had told the T&T Guardian last month, “I’ll up­date you on this in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture at a time I deem ap­pro­pri­ate. Be ful­ly as­sured, I re­main keen on con­tribut­ing to the fu­ture of our coun­try and the par­ty.”

A De­cem­ber 8 Sun­day Guardian sto­ry then in­di­cat­ed Row­ley wouldn’t be screened for the Diego Mar­tin West seat and that Browne had his “bless­ing” as a re­place­ment. Browne sub­se­quent­ly said he hadn’t been ap­proached by the con­stituen­cy re­gard­ing nom­i­na­tion.

Sub­se­quent­ly, how­ev­er, it was re­vealed that Browne had sub­mit­ted a Jan­u­ary 10 con­sent let­ter to PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, “giv­ing his full and un­equiv­o­cal con­sent” to be nom­i­nat­ed for con­sid­er­a­tion for the seat.

That let­ter was copied to chair­man of the PNM’s Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy, Jack­ie Lazarus, and the par­ty groups. There are 23 par­ty groups, as well as Women’s League and Youth League units.

How­ev­er, Des Vi­gnes has so far led the way in terms of nom­i­na­tions from par­ty groups, who have been meet­ing over re­cent days.

Let­ter states

Browne’s let­ter to chair­man Lazarus was head­ed “Re­vo­ca­tion of Con­sent.”

It stat­ed, “Up­on con­sid­er­a­tion of fur­ther ad­vice I have made a de­ci­sion to with­draw my name from the Diego Mar­tin West nom­i­na­tion process. I there­fore re­voke con­sent for nom­i­na­tion for the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy.

“I re­main in full sup­port of the PNM par­ty and am com­plete­ly com­mit­ted to our best out­come in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

“Thank you for your kind con­sid­er­a­tion and I ex­tend my grat­i­tude and sin­cere best wish­es to you and the en­tire con­stituen­cy team … Yours faith­ful­ly Amery Browne.”

Process con­tin­ues next week ...

Re­ply­ing to Guardian Me­dia ques­tions via What­sApp last evening, Browne didn’t give de­tails on his rea­sons for with­draw­al, if he would seek an­oth­er seat or what his next steps are.

He on­ly said, “Up­on fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion, I have the de­ci­sion to re­voke the con­sent I had grant­ed for nom­i­na­tion for Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy and I have in­formed the con­stituen­cy chair­man ac­cord­ing­ly.

“I re­main in full sup­port of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and com­plete­ly com­mit­ted to our par­ty’s best out­come in the up­com­ing elec­tions,”

Lazarus was un­avail­able yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, the nom­i­na­tion process con­tin­ues. A Diego Mar­tin West ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cial told Guardian Me­dia that the ex­ec­u­tive will con­tin­ue the process with the nom­i­nees and in­di­ca­tions from par­ty groups on their choic­es. A meet­ing will be held next week and at the end of the ex­er­cise, the ex­ec­u­tive will screen those suc­cess­ful.

The names of the suc­cess­ful per­sons will be sub­mit­ted to the par­ty in time for the Jan­u­ary 27 sub­mis­sion dead­line.

Des Vi­gnes wants to unite con­stituen­cy

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Des Vi­gnes, 39, in con­firm­ing that he had con­sent­ed to nom­i­na­tion, said, “What I would main­ly like to fo­cus on is con­nect­ing the cit­i­zens with­in the con­stituen­cy. Diego Mar­tin West is a di­verse con­stituen­cy; a lot of in­di­vid­u­als who may not have re­sources, but al­so in­di­vid­u­als that have re­sources. How do we get the en­tire con­stituen­cy to con­nect with each oth­er, work with each oth­er, and work on mak­ing Diego Mar­tin West even bet­ter than it al­ready is?”

He added that he feels blessed to be con­sid­ered by at least four par­ty groups.

— With re­port­ing by Da­reece Po­lo