STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

For­mer Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris is “ac­tive­ly con­sid­er­ing” chal­leng­ing for­mer To­ba­go West MP Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis for lead­er­ship of the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil.

Af­ter fail­ing to win the last three THA elec­tions, the Coun­cil will search for pos­si­bly its fourth leader in six years.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was swept aside 15-0 in the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions.

In a What­sApp mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mor­ris said he will “con­tin­ue to re­flect and lis­ten to the views of oth­ers be­fore mak­ing a fi­nal de­ci­sion.”

Cud­joe-Lewis an­nounced her can­di­da­cy on so­cial me­dia on Thurs­day, not­ing the Coun­cil is “at a crit­i­cal cross­roads” and now was “not the time to sit on the side­lines or jump ship.” The for­mer sports min­is­ter said she in­tends to mod­ernise the par­ty and make it more dis­ci­plined and ef­fec­tive. She called on the PNM faith­ful to get on board and of­fer them­selves to re­build the ex­ec­u­tive.

Asked about Cud­joe-Lewis throw­ing her hat in the ring, Mor­ris, the soli­tary PNM as­sem­bly­man in the last THA, said, “I wel­come any­one who feels they can make a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to the par­ty and to To­ba­go to come for­ward and of­fer them­selves for ser­vice.”

He said Cud­joe-Lewis has served the par­ty and To­ba­go well for many years and made her con­tri­bu­tion to pub­lic life.

The for­mer Dar­rel Spring/Whim rep­re­sen­ta­tive said the pri­or­i­ty of the PNM in To­ba­go is “uni­ty of pur­pose and a clear fo­cus on re­build­ing and strength­en­ing the par­ty as we move for­ward.

“Our fo­cus must re­main firm­ly on To­ba­go and on ad­dress­ing the re­al needs and con­cerns of or­di­nary To­bag­o­ni­ans. I re­main com­mit­ted to work­ing in the best in­ter­ests of To­ba­go and sup­port­ing ef­forts that strength­en both our com­mu­ni­ties and the par­ty as we move ahead to­geth­er.”

Af­ter con­ced­ing de­feat on elec­tion night, PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis hint­ed at res­ig­na­tion, say­ing he would “sup­port the tran­si­tion to new lead­er­ship.” How­ev­er, he lat­er clar­i­fied that he nev­er meant step­ping aside as po­lit­i­cal leader and would sup­port a new PNM Coun­cil ex­ec­u­tive.

Ef­forts to con­tact Den­nis for a com­ment on Cud­joe-Lewis’s can­di­da­cy yes­ter­day were fu­tile.

Mean­while, To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) deputy leader Dr Faith Breb­nor de­clined to com­ment on the mat­ter. In a What­sApp mes­sage yes­ter­day, she said the TPP was not in­ter­est­ed in PNM’s af­fairs.

“The TPP has no in­ter­est in the in­ter­nal pol­i­tics of the PNM. We are here gov­ern­ing the is­land, pick­ing up the many bro­ken pieces left by the PNM in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and ex­e­cut­ing To­ba­go’s Blue­print, in be­com­ing the great­est lit­tle is­land on the plan­et.”