Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is let­ting her de­trac­tors know not to un­der­es­ti­mate her hu­mil­i­ty.

Break­ing from her usu­al re­served dis­po­si­tion, in a fiery ad­dress at the ONE PNM cam­paign launch at the Ari­ma An­gel Harps Pan Yard on Sat­ur­day evening, Beck­les said she will not be forced to act be­fore she’s ready.

“I am not run­ning down every car that pass ... and no­body ain’t rush­ing me to talk be­fore I ready to talk. What al­lyuh re­al­ly think it is?” Beck­les asked the crowd as they chant­ed her name.

She al­so ac­knowl­edged the role the PNM played in some of the so­cial is­sues in this coun­try, in­clud­ing crime, and promised to do bet­ter.

Beck­les was se­lect­ed as Op­po­si­tion Leader on May 4. She is the sole can­di­date for the post of po­lit­i­cal leader in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s June 22 in­ter­nal elec­tions. So­cial me­dia pages that seemed to be dis­sat­is­fied with her lead­er­ship such as Change­­mak­ers 2025 and Red Mo­bilza­tion have been cri­tiquing her and her ONE PNM slate.

Some key mem­bers of the ONE PNM team in­clude Mar­vin Gon­za­les for Chair­man, Dr Amery Browne as Vice Chair­man, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly as La­dy Vice-Chair­man, Fos­ter Cum­mings as Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, Faris Al-Rawi, SC as Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer, and Ka­reem Mar­celle as Youth Of­fi­cer.

“Some peo­ple ain’t hap­py I have a slate, right. Let me tell you some­thing, one of the most im­por­tant things in life when you lead­ing is to have sol­diers,” she stat­ed.

Ref­er­enc­ing a strat­e­gy used by the first leader of the PNM Dr Er­ic Williams who would some­times re­move his hear­ing aid dur­ing par­lia­men­tary ses­sions to show he was de­lib­er­ate­ly tun­ing out noise, crit­i­cism, or dis­sent, the first woman po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty told her sup­port­ers she un­der­stood why he did that. She en­cour­aged those in her cor­ner to ig­nore the noise.

“Some­times you just doh need to lis­ten...We must en­sure that we have the facts, and when we speak the peo­ple must trust what we say,” she said.

Beck­les added that this was the first time in the his­to­ry of the par­ty that so many peo­ple of­fered them­selves to serve.

“That is a good sign, democ­ra­cy at work,” she said.

“Them who com­plain­ing, Change­Mak­ers, Red Mo­bi­liza­tion, whey, what­ev­er, yes, doh wor­ry with them,” Beck­les con­tin­ued in a Tri­ni di­alect.

As the par­ty pre­pares for its 70th an­niver­sary in Jan­u­ary 2026, Beck­les said when the PNM re­flect­ed on its elec­tion de­feat they learned that many of their sup­port­ers felt hurt, un­seen, un­heard and for­got­ten.

The leader ac­knowl­edged the role her par­ty played in this coun­try’s high crime rate and the state of the econ­o­my.

“We have seen fam­i­lies un­sure of their next meal, crime has made some par­ents afraid to let their chil­dren even walk the streets. Let us not pre­tend, some of that pain came dur­ing a time when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was in charge,” she said.

But she made it clear that un­der her lead­er­ship those who of­fered them­selves to serve must be ac­count­able.

Beck­les added that those who hold po­si­tions must at­tend the gen­er­al coun­cil and told her 13 MPs to go back to their con­stituen­cies once elect­ed. She said they will al­so vis­it op­po­si­tion con­stituen­cies and To­ba­go.

“I want to say to you we didn’t lose our way, we just lost touch and that ends now un­der my lead­er­ship,” she said.

And to en­sure that sup­port­ers, es­pe­cial­ly young peo­ple, do not feel dis­con­nect­ed or the par­ty’s poli­cies seem dis­tant, Beck­les an­nounced that af­ter the PNM’s June 29 con­ven­tion, she will be ac­ces­si­ble through reg­u­lar pub­lic days at Bal­isi­er House.

The Ari­ma MP, who has served in the par­ty since 1995, al­so an­nounced the launch of the PNM Help Hot­line for peo­ple who find them­selves vic­tims of a “cal­lous and ruth­less gov­ern­ment”.