AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing Mon­day’s an­nounce­ment that Pen­ne­lope Beck­les will run un­op­posed for po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), for­mer PNM mem­ber Karen Nunez-Tesheira has warned she faces sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­nal fric­tion and in­flat­ed egos with­in the par­ty.

On Mon­day, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced on so­cial me­dia he won’t con­test any par­ty po­si­tion, say­ing it’s best for the PNM.

Nunez-Tesheira not­ed that nei­ther Young nor for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Camille Robin­son-Reg­is was present at the nom­i­na­tion pro­ceed­ings at Bal­isi­er House on Mon­day.

In­stead, she said that PNM mem­bers who had ral­lied around Young’s con­tro­ver­sial ap­point­ment as prime min­is­ter, showed their sup­port for Beck­les.

“It’s all the­atre, you know…I have been in the PNM be­fore,” Nunez-Tesheira said in an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme on Tues­day.

“Pol­i­tics is not a game for the faint-heart­ed. And there are peo­ple who have a lot of am­bi­tion. There are lots of egos in­volved…many peo­ple who sup­pos­ed­ly sup­port­ed Stu­art Young, the show­ing of sup­port ob­vi­ous­ly wasn't re­al.”

Nunez-Tesheira said that she does not pre­dict ‘smooth sail­ing’ for Beck­les, claim­ing many in the ‘Stu­art Young camp’ are still ac­tive in the PNM. But she is hope­ful that the in­com­ing po­lit­i­cal leader will suc­ceed and will be a ‘breath of fresh air.’

“I think the PNM wants to have a leader that does not come across as bul­ly­ing or con­fronta­tion­al…I hope the best for her, but we'll see how it emerges, be­cause there's a lot of un­hap­pi­ness, a lot of fric­tion in the par­ty.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad al­so called Beck­les Robin­son’s un­op­posed can­di­da­cy as a ‘pru­dent move’, say­ing it can help the PNM re­build. But be­lieves that Young has a place in the par­ty, at­tract­ing vot­ers from oth­er eth­nic groups.

“I think there was a lot of con­fu­sion. So it brings back some sta­bil­i­ty. It's al­so his­toric. This is the first time you have a fe­male op­po­si­tion leader,” Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said.

“She [Beck­les] has al­ways been lik­able. She's pret­ty lik­able. She has not been em­broiled in any ma­jor con­tro­ver­sy, as far as I know.”