Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive her in­s­tu­ment of ap­point­ment as Op­po­si­tion Leader to­day .

Yes­ter­day, Pres­i­dent’s House sent out in­vites for the cer­e­mo­ny, which Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­bers are ex­pect­ed to at­tend.

Beck­les-Robin­son re­tained the Ari­ma con­stituen­cy af­ter last week’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion, which saw the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and its Coali­tion of In­ter­ests de­feat­ing the PNM. The UNC got 26 seats to the PNM’s 13. The oth­er two seats went to the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty.

Beck­les-Robin­son re­ceived the nod of all 12 PNM MP-elects and the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil for the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader, as stat­ed in a re­lease PNM re­lease on Sun­day.

PNM sources said yes­ter­day that she is al­so ex­pect­ed to seek the post of po­lit­i­cal leader when the par­ty has its lead­er­ship elec­tions with­in six months. Pre­vi­ous PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­signed af­ter the elec­tion de­feat. He took re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the loss.

Ac­cord­ing to PNM of­fi­cials, those tipped for Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives line-up in Par­lia­ment in­clude suc­cess­ful can­di­dates Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

Par­ty sources could not say if for­mer prime min­is­ter and for­mer En­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young may be con­sid­ered for Chief Whip. He had a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day to re­spond to state­ments from the Gov­ern­ment on the en­er­gy sec­tor.

Asked if he was com­fort­able with his new po­si­tion in the par­ty, Young said, “Of course I am, un­less there’s some rea­son for me to ex­pe­ri­ence dis­com­fort, the an­swer is yes. I’m a life­time mem­ber of the PNM and I’m in this to give ser­vice. Can I pre­dict how my life will un­fold? The an­swer is no.”

He re­signed last week as par­ty chair­man.

Apart from long­stand­ing mem­bers who won their seats - Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and Colm Im­bert - the PNM’s 13-mem­ber Par­lia­ment team al­so com­pris­es Bri­an Man­ning, Kei­th Scot­land, Symon de No­bri­ga and four new faces en­ter­ing Par­lia­ment.

Par­ty sources al­so tipped six mem­bers of the Sen­ate, who are Dr Amery Browne, and de­feat­ed can­di­dates Faris Al-Rawi and Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis among oth­ers.

PNM of­fi­cials sup­port­ing Beck­les-Robin­son said she will like­ly be pre­sent­ing a slate for the ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. Some of the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers said they hadn’t thought yet about con­test­ing, since the con­ven­tion date hasn’t been an­nounced. PNM labour of­fi­cer Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and for­mer min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte didn’t re­ply yes­ter­day on whether they would seek posts or be on Beck­les-Robin­son’s slate.

PNM Women's League hits 'gen­der in­equity in UNC Cab­i­net'

Mean­while, the PNM Women’s League, head­ed by la­dy vice chair­man Robin­son-Reg­is, is­sued a state­ment ac­cus­ing the fe­male-led UNC Gov­ern­ment of “be­ing short on gen­der eq­ui­ty in Cab­i­net rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

The state­ment said, “De­spite the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) brand­ing it­self as a pro­gres­sive, fe­male-led ad­min­is­tra­tion and the Prime Min­is­ter pub­licly em­brac­ing the im­age of be­ing the ‘Moth­er of the Na­tion’, the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment ap­point­ments tell a stark­ly dif­fer­ent sto­ry. Of the 24 Cab­i­net ap­point­ments, on­ly five are women, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, among the 32 ap­point­ments an­nounced just six are women. This stark dis­par­i­ty rais­es sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns re­gard­ing the gov­ern­ment’s ded­i­ca­tion to gen­der equal­i­ty and in­clu­sive lead­er­ship.”

The PNM Women’s League added, “In con­trast, the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tions demon­strat­ed stronger fe­male rep­re­sen­ta­tion in lead­er­ship. In 2015, ten women served in the gov­ern­ment; in 2020, that num­ber stood at eight.”