Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son ac­cept­ed her in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion on Tues­day, de­clar­ing she sees her role as one of servi­tude, stress­ing that op­po­si­tion does not mean ob­struc­tion in her eyes.

The cer­e­mo­ny took place at Pres­i­dent’s House, one week af­ter the PNM lost the gen­er­al elec­tion. Beck­les was unan­i­mous­ly cho­sen by the 13 MPs in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Beck­les said she ac­cept­ed the role with hu­mil­i­ty and a sense of du­ty to cit­i­zens.

“I serve, not for me, but for you, the peo­ple” she said. “I serve for you, the par­ent who dreams of a bet­ter life for their chil­dren. I serve for you the en­tre­pre­neur in need of sup­port to thrive. I serve for you the young per­son who de­sires to fur­ther your ed­u­ca­tion. I serve for you the re­cent grad­u­ate seek­ing de­cent work. I serve for you the stu­dent who needs spe­cial sup­port to at­tain your ed­u­ca­tion­al goals.”

She re­ject­ed the idea that the Op­po­si­tion must be de­fined by hos­til­i­ty.

Let me be clear, it is not my con­vic­tion that op­po­si­tion means ob­struc­tion,” she said.” True lead­er­ship is not nec­es­sar­i­ly loud, ag­gres­sive or den­i­grat­ing, it is steady, thought­ful, and coura­geous. Our democ­ra­cy flour­ish­es not through di­vi­sive­ness, but through ro­bust de­bate, shared pur­pose, and mu­tu­al re­spect.”

She added, “Judge me, not for my desk for the deci­bel of my voice, but by the depth of my com­mit­ment, and the strength of my con­vic­tion to lift every cit­i­zen high­er.”

She de­scribed her ap­point­ment as a mo­ment of pos­si­bil­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly for young women, and said the PNM would re­turn to first prin­ci­ples of peo­ple-cen­tred de­vel­op­ment.

Beck­les ac­knowl­edged Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s his­toric sec­ond term in of­fice and re­flect­ed on their per­son­al con­nec­tion.

“Prime Min­is­ter, your lead­er­ship is his­toric, and to­day it car­ries even deep­er mean­ing for me per­son­al­ly, as I stand here, not on­ly as leader of the op­po­si­tion, but al­so as a for­mer stu­dent once seat­ed in your class­room. Your jour­ney from ed­u­ca­tor to Prime Min­is­ter serves as a pro­found re­minder that our na­tion re­mains a land of pos­si­bil­i­ties.,” she said.