Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

New­ly-ap­point­ed Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man is ask­ing To­ba­go par­ty mem­bers to judge her by her ser­vice, not her past.

Com­ment­ing yes­ter­day on what ap­peared to be rum­blings with­in the To­ba­go Coun­cil about her ap­point­ment over oth­er se­nior PNM mem­bers, Roberts-Radg­man told Guardian Me­dia, “Peo­ple are al­ways en­ti­tled to their opin­ion. I think that is the hall­mark of democ­ra­cy… I in­tend to let my work do the talk­ing.”

Her com­ments come amid dis­qui­et and un­ease from some PNM sup­port­ers over her past po­lit­i­cal align­ment with the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP).

Roberts-Radg­man did not shy away from the is­sue yes­ter­day, open­ly talk­ing about her 2017 po­lit­i­cal start un­der the PDP.

“I would have made the choice for my­self, and I think hav­ing made the choice for my­self, it says more about a per­son’s loy­al­ty than hav­ing that choice foist­ed up­on you,” she said.

She ex­plained that her time in the PDP was not wast­ed, but rather a foun­da­tion that taught her im­por­tant lessons.

“At the time that I en­tered pol­i­tics, it was not an easy road. We were build­ing some­thing from the ground up. It was a very au­then­tic and in­dige­nous grass­root move­ment. It re­quired me to dig deep, to find re­sources and find a way to con­nect with peo­ple.”

To­day, she said her fo­cus has shift­ed to na­tion­al ser­vice and us­ing the Sen­ate as a plat­form to rep­re­sent To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests—es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to crime and the econ­o­my.

“It’s a run­away horse. It’s some­thing that we need to rein back in as much as we can,” she said of To­ba­go’s crime sit­u­a­tion.

She al­so not­ed that, “al­most every­thing that hap­pens on a na­tion­al lev­el has some sort of im­pli­ca­tion for To­ba­go… I am go­ing to find the To­ba­go an­gle and the To­ba­go im­pact on pret­ty much every mat­ter.”

Roberts-Radg­man said she had al­so re­ceived con­grat­u­la­to­ry calls and guid­ance from past sen­a­tors, MPS and THA of­fi­cials since she was sworn in last Fri­day.

“I do feel em­braced. And I think, as I said, for the oth­er mem­bers who might have con­cerns, my work will do the talk­ing.”

Roberts-Radg­man said she “wasn’t born in­to any par­ty. I chose this path. And now, I’m here to serve.”

Her ap­point­ment, how­ev­er, did not go un­no­ticed by PDP leader Wat­son Duke, who took the cred­it for her rise and deemed him­self a true po­lit­i­cal hero by her suc­cess.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day, Duke wast­ed no time in re­mind­ing the pub­lic of her PDP foun­da­tion, say­ing, “Melanie was my first can­di­date in the 2017 THA elec­tions. She have (sic) moved on and have def­i­nite­ly found her place with the PNM.”

De­spite the po­lit­i­cal jab, Roberts-Radg­man said her en­er­gy is fo­cused on her new role. While she isn’t rul­ing out a fu­ture run for elect­ed of­fice, she made it clear it’s not her cur­rent pri­or­i­ty.

“The fo­cus right now is just set­tling in­to the new role… then I will give it some con­sid­er­a­tion at that point in time,” she said.

Mean­while, ad­dress­ing ru­mors of in­fight­ing with­in the To­ba­go Coun­cil, leader An­cil Den­nis said, “The PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil re­mains unit­ed in its mis­sion to serve the peo­ple of To­ba­go with in­tegri­ty and pur­pose. While in­di­vid­ual mem­bers may ex­press strong views from time to time, open di­a­logue is a hall­mark of any healthy de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion, which is a re­flec­tion of the PNM.”

He added that the par­ty con­tin­ues to work “col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly, fo­cused on strength­en­ing the par­ty, and stand­ing in the gap for the voice­less… with a re­newed sense of com­mit­ment and one vi­sion.”

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris al­so shared his thoughts in a Face­book post on Sun­day. He made it clear the po­si­tion of leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil is not cur­rent­ly up for ap­point­ment, and any fu­ture changes, if any, must fol­low the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion and in­ter­nal struc­tures.

He warned mem­bers against us­ing so­cial me­dia to spread mis­in­for­ma­tion or stir di­vi­sion, say­ing they should fo­cus on the re­al goal of win­ning back To­ba­go in the next THA elec­tion.