SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) elec­tions su­per­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee (ESC) An­tho­ny Roberts says a lot of peo­ple have ex­pressed a keen in­ter­est in con­test­ing the par­ty’s De­cem­ber 4 elec­tion.

His com­ments came as the par­ty get set for Mon­day’s nom­i­na­tions.

The PNM will is­sue a list of all its nom­i­nees on Tues­day.

Roberts told Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day that it was too ear­ly to tell how many peo­ple will vie for the 16 ex­ec­u­tive posts that are up for grabs.

“I will not know un­til Mon­day af­ter­noon when we go through the doc­u­men­ta­tion. It’s too ear­ly to say.”

With hours away from nom­i­na­tion day, Roberts said, “All I can say is that peo­ple are show­ing a lot of in­ter­est. At this time the ex­cite­ment is build­ing.”

Last Sat­ur­day, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira chal­lenged PNM’s leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley for the post.

Less than a week lat­er, Nunez-Tesheira is­sued a let­ter to Roberts rais­ing con­cerns about the PNM’s three days of vot­ing, sched­uled on No­vem­ber 26 ad 27 and De­cem­ber 4.

When one con­sid­ers that on­ly one day is set aside for vot­ing in the gen­er­al elec­tion and else­where, Nunez-Tesheira wrote “this process be­comes even more baf­fling” and gives an “op­por­tu­ni­ty for ill-in­ten­tioned per­sons to tam­per with the bal­lot box­es.”

She called on the par­ty to re­vert to its one day of vot­ing and that they make avail­able the lo­ca­tions of the req­ui­site forms and pub­li­ca­tions of clear guide­lines for new reg­is­trants par­tic­i­pat­ing in the elec­tion.

Re­spond­ing to Nunez-Tesheira, Roberts said nom­i­na­tion forms can be ob­tained from par­ty groups.

Robert said the de­ci­sion to have three days of vot­ing was tak­en by the par­ty’s gen­er­al coun­cil.

“So that is not some­thing I would have to wor­ry about.”

Ear­li­er last week, a list of can­di­dates con­test­ing the elec­tion be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia which the ESC had to re­fute.

The PNM’s cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive com­pris­es peo­ple who were on a slate head­ed by Row­ley which won the 2018 in­ter­nal elec­tions.

On Fri­day, the Red Brigade post­ed on their Face­book page that they ful­ly sup­port­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young for the po­si­tion of chair­man.

It was al­so re­port­ed in Thurs­day’s T&T Guardian that Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly is giv­ing strong con­sid­er­a­tion to con­test the post of vice chair­man which has been va­cant since Robert Le Hunte re­signed in Jan­u­ary.

Al­so eye­ing the vice chair­man’s post is Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning.

Weigh­ing in on the up­com­ing elec­tion, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Hamid Ghany said in 2020 short­ly af­ter Row­ley and the PNM won the gen­er­al elec­tion, he spoke on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme and open­ly raised the is­sue of his fu­ture tenure as leader of the PNM.

“That opened the door to spec­u­la­tion as re­gards whether he would want to con­tin­ue as leader af­ter 2022 as the last elec­tion for the four-year term was in 2018. To­mor­row, we shall know whether he is con­tin­u­ing or not. Whether or not all of this amounts to oth­er chal­lengers com­ing for­ward will be re­vealed to­mor­row.”

Ghany said the chances of per­sons who are not elect­ed MPs con­test­ing the lead­er­ship are usu­al­ly di­min­ished as they do not have an im­me­di­ate prospect of be­com­ing prime min­is­ter.

In 1987, Ae­neas Wills chal­lenged Patrick Man­ning for the lead­er­ship of the par­ty and lost, while in 2014, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les (who was not an elect­ed MP) chal­lenged Row­ley and was de­feat­ed.

Un­der sec­tion 76(1)(a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, Ghany said a per­son can be ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter if they are the leader of the par­ty that com­mands the sup­port of a ma­jor­i­ty of MPs and if they are will­ing to be ap­point­ed.

“If any of the cur­rent PNM MPs de­cide to chal­lenge Row­ley for the lead­er­ship or if he de­clines to run, then the ef­fect of some­one oth­er than him be­com­ing prime min­is­ter would de­pend on who wins that in­ter­nal elec­tion.”

The PNM has not had a di­rect chal­lenger, who is al­so an elect­ed MP, to its in­cum­bent leader since Row­ley chal­lenged Man­ning in 1996 un­der the pre­vi­ous del­e­gate sys­tem.

Man­ning emerged vic­to­ri­ous on that oc­ca­sion.

How­ev­er, Ghany said with the in­tro­duc­tion of the one per­son-one vote sys­tem in 2014 in the PNM, there is a sec­ond bal­lot runoff sys­tem if no one gets more than 50 per cent of the votes cast on the first bal­lot.

“That would on­ly arise as an is­sue if there are more than two per­sons con­test­ing the elec­tion.”

Ghany said the role of par­ty fi­nanciers and their pref­er­ences can­not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed.