Gail Alexan­der

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment new­ly-se­lect­ed Ari­ma can­di­date Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son says she re­ceived no spe­cial favours by the par­ty in or­der to be screened.

Beck­les-Robin­son was cho­sen by the screen­ing com­mit­tee over in­cum­bent An­tho­ny Gar­i­ca, af­ter she was screened vir­tu­al­ly hav­ing re­turned home last week from the US on an ap­proved ex­emp­tion as the bor­ders re­main closed.

She re­mained in quar­an­tine yes­ter­day but said in the next two weeks she will be don­ning her PNM jer­sey and will be out walk­ing Ari­ma in her bid to be­ing the area’s next MP.

Speak­ing about her nom­i­na­tion yes­ter­day, Beck­les-Robin­son said, “This is some­thing I’d con­tem­plat­ed and I sent in my con­sent let­ter to be nom­i­nat­ed a good time ago—it’s good to be home.

“I’ve been at the UN for some time and I be­lieve I’ve de­vel­oped some ad­di­tion­al skill sets I feel I can bring to bear in as­sist­ing the de­vel­op­ment of Ari­ma and our coun­try.

“For ex­am­ple, in this cur­rent COVID pan­dem­ic pe­ri­od, the area where I lived in New York—New Rochelle—was one of the first ar­eas where cas­es oc­curred and which was quar­an­tined.

“There was an out­break in a Jew­ish church...my daugh­ter couldn’t go to school...so the im­pact of the pan­dem­ic and its glob­al na­ture—ex­tend­ing to T&T even—were all very clear to me. Be­ing in what was called Ground Ze­ro of the pan­dem­ic in the US, we were able to learn what to do and what not to do.”

On con­cerns that she got an ex­emp­tion to re­turn home for the screen­ing due to her po­si­tion as Gov­ern­ment’s UN am­bas­sador, Beck­les-Robin­son said, “There were no spe­cial favours for me.”

How­ev­er, she re­fused to an­swer more ques­tions on this is­sue, say­ing she’d speak more on it when she com­pletes her quar­an­tine.

Nor did Beck­les-Robin­son want to ad­dress spec­u­la­tion in the PNM that the fact the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced her as the can­di­date meant that suc­ces­sion plan­ning may be in play in the cam­paign choic­es.

On whether she’s will­ing to serve in a PNM Op­po­si­tion if elec­tion re­sults come to that, Beck­les-Robin­son said, “What you’re go­ing up for in elec­tions is to be­come a rep­re­sen­ta­tive—an MP. That’s first and fore­most. My ob­jec­tive is to as­sist PNM in win­ning the elec­tion to form gov­ern­ment.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to this cam­paign so much. I’m very hap­py to have an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve the peo­ple of Ari­ma. When I served last as an MP it was a great ex­pe­ri­ence for me—it’s an area that’s very dear to my heart.’’

She added, “I look for­ward to work­ing with the ex­ec­u­tive, coun­cil­lors and neigh­bour­ing cor­po­ra­tion and do­ing my best to im­prove peo­ple’s stan­dard of liv­ing. I thank the screen­ing com­mit­tee for the con­fi­dence they’ve re­posed in me and I great­ly ac­knowl­edge the work of Mr (MP) Gar­cia and all who’ve been in­stru­men­tal with PNM in Ari­ma in the term.’’

Ad­dress­ing the screen­ing team’s se­lec­tion of Beck­les-Robin­son yes­ter­day, Gar­cia said, “The par­ty’s struc­tures are in place and we have to abide by the par­ty’s de­ci­sions. I abide whol­ly and com­plete­ly by the de­ci­sion—I have no prob­lems with that.”

On whether he’ll be as­sist­ing Beck­les-Robin­son’s cam­paign, he added, “I hold life mem­ber­ship in the PNM. Wher­ev­er and when­ev­er I’m need­ed, I’ll cer­tain­ly ren­der as­sis­tance to the best of my abil­i­ty.’’

Ari­ma ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers said they ex­pect­ed Beck­les-Robin­son would be­gin cam­paign­ing short­ly.

Beck­les-Robin­son, 59, was Ari­ma MP for 10 years from 2000 to 2010 dur­ing the Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion’s tenure.

Last Sun­day, the PNM screen­ing team head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley se­lect­ed Beck­les-Robin­son over Gar­cia, who was rec­om­mend­ed by the Ari­ma ex­ec­u­tive

Beck­les-Robin­son re­turned home last week af­ter re­ceiv­ing an ex­emp­tion from Gov­ern­ment to en­ter T&T’s closed bor­ders and im­me­di­ate­ly en­tered quar­an­tine. She was screened by the screen­ing team via Zoom plat­form from her quar­an­tine lo­ca­tion.

She was one of three Ari­ma nom­i­nees, in­clud­ing in­cum­bent Gar­cia and Dr Hillary Bernard. When nom­i­na­tions first came in last month, Gar­cia had 11 ex­ec­u­tive votes, Bernard 7 and Beck­les-Robin­son 5. Gar­cia al­so had sup­port from 8 par­ty groups, Beck­les from 6 and Bernard 2.

At Sun­day’s screen­ing, Gar­cia, Bernard and Beck­les-Robin­son were screened in that or­der. How­ev­er, Ari­ma’s ex­ec­u­tive was asked to vote for a can­di­date via se­cret bal­lot. PNM of­fi­cials con­firmed Beck­les-Robin­son got nine votes, Gar­cia six and Bernard four.

The T&T Guardian was told screen­ing team leader Row­ley even­tu­al­ly an­nounced Beck­les-Robin­son as the cho­sen can­di­date.

Beck­les-Robin­son, orig­i­nal­ly from Bor­de Narve Vil­lage, South Trinidad and a law school grad­u­ate, is T&T’s out­go­ing Unit­ed Na­tions rep­re­sen­ta­tive. An at­tor­ney, she en­tered Par­lia­ment as a PNM sen­a­tor in 1995, was Ari­ma MP (2000-2010) and a min­is­ter in four min­istries in the now-de­ceased Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion. Beck­les-Robin­son was al­so T&T’s first fe­male deputy House Speak­er and was al­so a PNM la­dy vice-chair­man.

Beck­les-Robin­son un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Row­ley for PNM’s lead­er­ship in 2014 when the PNM was in Op­po­si­tion. When he won gen­er­al elec­tions in 2015, he ap­point­ed her UN Am­bas­sador. In 2019, she helped the PNM cam­paign in some East ar­eas for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on Beck­les-Robin­son’s se­lec­tion yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said he didn’t know the ra­tio­nale for plac­ing her as a can­di­date.

“It may be a gen­der as­pect move and al­so be­cause she’s younger than in­cum­bent (Gar­cia). We don’t know for sure that it’s suc­ces­sion plan­ning—there was nev­er that love be­tween Row­ley and Pen­ny. But the choice is a plus for PNM moves to uni­fy the old and new PNM—the Row­ley and Man­ning sides,” Ra­goonath said.

The screen­ing team on Sun­day al­so elect­ed al­der­man Roger Munroe for the To­co-San­gre Grande seat and at­tor­ney Mar­vin Gon­za­les for Lopinot-Bon Air West.

It was the third try for To­co-San­gre Grande and Lopinot-Bon Air West and Ari­ma’s first screen­ing. The PNM now has 40 of its 41 can­di­dates, the par­ty con­firmed yes­ter­day.