Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of­fi­cial Robert Le Hunte says Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ny Beck­les will have his full sup­port if she puts her­self up for par­ty leader, as he ex­pects she will, and he’s open, af­ter dis­cus­sion with her and oth­er lead­er­ship of­fi­cials, to help re­build the par­ty.

Le Hunte made that clear af­ter say­ing some “ground” mem­bers he had en­gaged with ex­pressed “a va­ri­ety of op­tions re­gard­ing po­ten­tial roles he could un­der­take, and he was con­sid­er­ing each of their sug­ges­tions.

At that time, he didn’t re­ply to queries on if he was con­sid­er­ing seek­ing lead­er­ship or if not par­ty leader, the deputy leader or gen­er­al sec­re­tary roles.

Speak­ing on Fri­day, Le Hunte clar­i­fied that the “lead­er­ship post in the par­ty is the chair­man, vice chair­man etc, the po­lit­i­cal leader is not the on­ly lead­er­ship post in the par­ty. That is def­i­nite­ly not the post of po­lit­i­cal leader I have been ap­proached on.”

Le Hunte said he was the first to en­dorse Beck­les as Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“And should Ms Beck­les put her­self up, as I ex­pect she will, for po­lit­i­cal leader at the up­com­ing con­ven­tion, I will not be op­pos­ing her. She has my full un­equiv­o­cal sup­port. To be abun­dant­ly clear, I will def­i­nite­ly not be op­pos­ing her. That be­ing said, I re­main open af­ter dis­cus­sion with her and oth­er mem­bers of her lead­er­ship team to help in any way I can in the re­struc­tur­ing and re­build­ing of the par­ty.”

Le Hunte’s com­ment came amid con­tin­u­ing in­fight­ing with­in the PNM in the wake of its elec­tion de­feat to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The 23-13 loss led to the res­ig­na­tions of for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty, Stu­art Young as chair­man and Ro­han Sinanan as par­ty or­gan­is­er. The deputy leader po­si­tions of Colm Im­bert and Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly were al­so re­voked by Row­ley be­fore they were se­lect­ed as chair­man and vice chair­man fol­low­ing a spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing last week.

Le Hunte said he hoped to meet her soon.