Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The in­ter­nal elec­tion for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil has been resched­uled to April 26, in­stead of the pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced April 19.

Nom­i­na­tions will be ac­cept­ed this Fri­day and Sat­ur­day from 10 am to 5.30 pm at the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil of­fice. All 17 ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions are open for nom­i­na­tion.

The an­nounce­ment came in a state­ment from the PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil yes­ter­day. The re­lease did not spec­i­fy why the date was changed. The orig­i­nal April 19 date had been con­firmed last month by PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who said the To­ba­go Coun­cil had for­mal­ly no­ti­fied the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil of the planned elec­tion.

To­ba­go Coun­cil mem­bers said yes­ter­day that the post­pone­ment fol­lowed a Tues­day meet­ing, which con­clud­ed that there was in­suf­fi­cient time to prop­er­ly pre­pare for the April 19 vote. Out­stand­ing is­sues in­clud­ed fi­nal­is­ing the mem­ber­ship list and the su­per­vi­so­ry team.

Two can­di­dates have de­clared for the To­ba­go lead­er­ship post: for­mer PNM To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris and for­mer MP Sham­fa Cud­joe.

Mor­ris, who had been the lone PNM As­sem­bly­man for Dar­rel Spring-Whim af­ter the 2021 THA elec­tions, nar­row­ly lost the seat by 12 votes in Jan­u­ary 2025 to To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty can­di­date Rick­ey Joe­field.

Sev­er­al promi­nent To­ba­go PNM fig­ures have con­firmed their sup­port for Mor­ris, in­clud­ing for­mer PNM Sen­a­tor Lau­rence His­lop, for­mer To­ba­go Coun­cil lead­ers Tracey David­son-Ce­les­tine and Kelvin Charles, and for­mer Mi­nor­i­ty Coun­cil­lor Petal Daniel-Benoit. He al­so en­joys back­ing from for­mer THA mem­bers Wen­dell Berkley, Clau­dia Groome-Duke, Gary Melville, Huey Cadette, and Na­dine Stew­art.

Mor­ris’ team for the ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions is be­ing fi­nalised. Sources in­di­cate po­ten­tial can­di­dates in­clude cur­rent PNM Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man (La­dy Vice Chair­man), Daniel-Benoit (Vice Chair­man), for­mer THA Hous­ing As­sem­bly­man Clarence Ja­cob, and Charles Smith. Sev­er­al younger PNM mem­bers are ex­pect­ed to con­test roles such as Field, Ed­u­ca­tion, Labour, Elec­tions, Youth, and So­cial Me­dia of­fi­cers.

Cud­joe faces push­back

Cud­joe, To­ba­go West MP since 2015, was de­feat­ed in the April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. While PNM leader Pen­ny Beck­les and Gon­za­les ini­tial­ly wel­comed her en­try in­to the lead­er­ship race dur­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day ob­ser­vances, her bid has faced push­back in To­ba­go.

Crit­ics cit­ed her past cam­paign state­ments about To­bag­o­ni­ans and ques­tioned her abil­i­ty to re­build sup­port. The de­fec­tion of her for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Keigon De­noon to the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), where he sub­se­quent­ly won the Buc­coo-Mt Pleas­ant seat, al­so raised con­cerns. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, some re­marks from Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ref­er­enc­ing Cud­joe’s po­ten­tial lead­er­ship stirred fur­ther de­bate.

Cud­joe did not re­spond to queries from Guardian Me­dia or com­ment on po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed’s views on her can­di­da­cy.

Mor­ris, how­ev­er, ad­dressed Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions and Mo­hammed’s analy­sis.

He said: “I look for­ward to the elec­tion be­ing set­tled as we move in­to a new phase of re­build­ing and re­new­al. Feed­back from mem­bers across To­ba­go—young and se­nior, in East, North, and West—has been very en­cour­ag­ing. There’s a clear sense that I have grown over the past four years as Mi­nor­i­ty Leader and am ready to lead.”

He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of team­work over a sin­gle “slate.”

“There is strong, broad-based sup­port, in­clud­ing ex­pe­ri­enced par­ty mem­bers and emerg­ing voic­es, all com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing the par­ty. I re­main hum­bled by the en­cour­age­ment and com­mit­ted to giv­ing my very best to To­ba­go, the coun­try, and the par­ty.”

Re­spond­ing to Mo­hammed’s claim that he was un­pre­pared for lead­er­ship, Mor­ris said, “Mr Mo­hammed is free to have his views. Re­spect­ful­ly, I do not share that per­spec­tive. This is about step­ping for­ward at the right time, with the right mind­set, and full com­mit­ment to serve. Over the past four years, I’ve served as Mi­nor­i­ty Leader and rep­re­sen­ta­tive, of­ten as the lone voice, and that ex­pe­ri­ence has strength­ened my lead­er­ship, re­silience, and readi­ness to serve at a high­er lev­el. Now more than ever, the par­ty re­quires steady, uni­fy­ing, and com­mit­ted lead­er­ship, and I am pre­pared to lead the ef­fort to re­build, re­con­nect, and re­store con­fi­dence in the par­ty across To­ba­go.”