Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, has an­nounced three new deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers fol­low­ing the par­ty’s first Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing since its June 22nd in­ter­nal elec­tion.

In her in­au­gur­al ad­dress to the coun­cil on Sat­ur­day, Beck­les named Colm Im­bert as Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader for Leg­isla­tive Af­fairs, Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus for Par­ty and Elec­tion Mat­ters, and San­jiv Bood­hu for Pol­i­cy. Lau­rel Leza­ma was ap­point­ed In­ter­na­tion­al Li­ai­son Of­fi­cer.

Im­bert pre­vi­ous­ly served as a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader un­der for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. In May, just days af­ter that post was re­voked when Row­ley stepped down as po­lit­i­cal leader, Im­bert was ap­point­ed vice chair­man of the par­ty dur­ing a spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil ses­sion. His re­turn to the deputy leader role now comes un­der Beck­les’ new ex­ec­u­tive.

Bap­tiste-Primus, a for­mer labour min­is­ter, made head­lines in Oc­to­ber 2024 when she was the sole Gen­er­al Coun­cil mem­ber to vote against the de­ci­sion to rat­i­fy the can­cel­la­tion of the par­ty’s 51st an­nu­al con­ven­tion and in­ter­nal elec­tion. She de­scribed the lead­er­ship’s ex­pla­na­tion as “woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate” and said she act­ed out of re­spect for the PNM’s con­sti­tu­tion. 

Bood­hu is an at­tor­ney and was the PNM’s can­di­date for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la. At his cam­paign launch ear­li­er this year, he said his de­ci­sion to en­ter pub­lic life was dri­ven by the lack of ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the con­stituen­cy.

“I want a so­ci­ety where elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives ad­vo­cate from the trench­es, rather than from an ivory tow­er,” he told sup­port­ers in San­gre Grande.

Beck­les al­so out­lined her vi­sion for the fu­ture of the par­ty, in­clud­ing the re­sump­tion of reg­u­lar pub­lic meet­ings, walk­a­bouts and press con­fer­ences. She said a steer­ing com­mit­tee will be ap­point­ed to over­see the PNM’s 70th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, which be­gin in Jan­u­ary 2026.

The PNM said that at its next Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing, all of­fi­cers will present work plans for the term ahead.

Beck­les al­so re­port­ed on a re­cent trip to New York, where she re­ceived a procla­ma­tion from State Sen­a­tor Seila By­noe and a ci­ta­tion from New York Pub­lic Ad­vo­cate Ju­maane Williams. She al­so ad­dressed a break­fast meet­ing host­ed by the Caribbean Di­as­po­ra Unit­ed Inc., where she was recog­nised for her ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to the par­ty’s of­fi­cial re­lease, Beck­les urged mem­bers to in­clude young peo­ple and re­mind­ed them that “there is room for all in the PNM.”