KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young has opt­ed out of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) in­ter­nal elec­tions card­ed for June 22nd, paving the way for Pen­ne­lope Beck­les to be­come po­lit­i­cal leader un­op­posed.

In a state­ment post­ed to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, Young said he does not be­lieve con­test­ing a po­si­tion in the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive is in the best in­ter­est of the par­ty at this junc­ture.

Young said, “I would like to sin­cere­ly thank the thou­sands of peo­ple who have com­mu­ni­cat­ed with me over the past few weeks of­fer­ing sup­port, well wish­es, en­cour­age­ment and even ad­vice as to my fu­ture. Thank you all.

“I have tak­en the time im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the re­sults of the Gen­er­al Elec­tion to en­gage in per­son­al re­flec­tion and, im­por­tant­ly, to ob­serve the con­duct of peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who seek po­si­tions that car­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Af­ter con­sid­ered re­flec­tion, as well as dis­cus­sions with my fam­i­ly and loved ones, I have con­clud­ed that it is not in the best in­ter­est of the par­ty for me to seek a post in the new ex­ec­u­tive. Ac­cord­ing­ly, at this junc­ture, I will not be seek­ing a post in the PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tions. Be as­sured that I will con­tin­ue to ful­fil my du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to my con­stituents, as an elect­ed mem­ber of par­lia­ment, to the coun­try that I love and rep­re­sent, and to my par­ty, the PNM.”

He added, “I will hold the Gov­ern­ment to ac­count and will con­tin­ue to fight for what is best for T&T. ‘Time is longer than twine’ and I pray that God con­tin­ues to guide me on my jour­ney.”

On April 30, both Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young re­signed as po­lit­i­cal leader and chair­man of the par­ty re­spec­tive­ly af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion de­feat to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, trig­ger­ing a process to elect a new par­ty ex­ec­u­tive.

Yes­ter­day, a to­tal of 51 peo­ple filed nom­i­na­tions for the 17 va­cant po­si­tions up for grabs dur­ing the Nom­i­na­tion Day process at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain.

Among the oth­ers vy­ing for ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions are Mar­vin Gon­za­les, Port-of-Spain may­or Chin­ua Al­leyne and Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai for chair­man, Dr Amery Browne, Paula Gopee-Scoon, Esau Mo­hammed and Muham­mad Yu­nis Ibrahim are seek­ing the vice chair­man po­si­tion. Dr Nyan-Gads­by-Dol­ly and Don­na Cox are eye­ing the la­dy vice chair­man po­si­tion, Fos­ter Cum­mings is al­so seek­ing to re­turn as gen­er­al sec­re­tary.

‘I’ve been lis­ten­ing

to the peo­ple’

Eleven years af­ter be­ing over­looked for the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader, Beck­les is now on her way to be­com­ing the first PNM fe­male po­lit­i­cal leader.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia at the end of the nom­i­na­tion process, Beck­les said she was emo­tion­al but ho­n­oured to fol­low in the foot­steps of Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­ers.

Beck­les said, “It is a priv­i­lege and an ho­n­our to lead a par­ty that was led by Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers, Patrick Man­ning, Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young. Yes, it’s an ho­n­our and of course, more im­por­tant­ly, to be the first fe­male in that of­fice.”

Since join­ing the par­lia­ment three decades ago as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in 1995, Beck­les has held nu­mer­ous port­fo­lios, in­clud­ing Ari­ma MP from Jan­u­ary 2001 to April 2010 and Au­gust 2020 to present, min­is­ter of so­cial de­vel­op­ment (Dec 2001-Oct 2002), min­is­ter of cul­ture and tourism (Oct 2002-Nov 2003), min­is­ter of pub­lic util­i­ties and the en­vi­ron­ment (Nov 2003-2007) and Op­po­si­tion Leader as at May 6.

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism that she’s been qui­et on sev­er­al is­sues since be­com­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader, she said, “I don’t know that I have been qui­et. One of the im­por­tant things fol­low­ing the elec­tions on April 28 is recog­nis­ing the im­por­tance of lis­ten­ing and I have been to sev­er­al con­stituen­cies. I think one of the im­por­tant things of be­ing a good leader is to lis­ten, so it’s not that I have not been en­gag­ing ... My style of lead­er­ship is dif­fer­ent.

“Some peo­ple ar­gue that I’m not loud enough. I do not know that lead­er­ship is about how loud you speak. It’s about your strat­e­gy. It’s about be­ing ef­fec­tive and more im­por­tant­ly, hav­ing lost the elec­tion, we have to do our own re­flec­tion as a par­ty. As mem­bers of par­lia­ment, it is im­por­tant to go back to our con­stituents and one thing that has been a con­sis­tent tread is our fail­ure to lis­ten so that is what I have been do­ing.”

She al­so re­vealed that the Of­fice of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion has of­fi­cial­ly been hand­ed over to her from the Gov­ern­ment and she will now be host­ing me­dia con­fer­ences there start­ing to­day.

Beck­les al­so re­spond­ed to crit­i­cism from the Gov­ern­ment on her choic­es for sen­a­tors.

She said, “I think the Prime Min­is­ter should look in the mir­ror as it re­lates to the is­sue of se­lect­ing sen­a­tors be­cause just look at her sen­a­tors and you would see that she does not have the right to crit­i­cise me in that re­spect.”

De­fend­ing sen­a­tors Fos­ter Cum­mings and Faris Al-Rawi, she said al­though they lost their seats in the elec­tion, she’s look­ing at what they will bring to the ta­ble.

De­spite sev­er­al calls for his res­ig­na­tion as gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Cum­mings said, “Pol­i­tics is about con­fi­dence and there­fore you have to demon­strate to those who you wish to con­vince that you be­lieve in what you are do­ing and that is how I have ap­proached my job. Now, I am not at all sat­is­fied and pleased with the re­sult of the last elec­tion, in par­tic­u­lar the re­sults in my own con­stituen­cy, but I do think, how­ev­er, that it has a lot to do with events that were not lo­cal ... We lost every mar­gin­al seat, so there was a sen­ti­ment across the coun­try that caused peo­ple to ei­ther stay away from the polls or to cast a vote for a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion. We have a new gov­ern­ment but as a par­ty, we are de­ter­mined to re-or­gan­ise, re­brand our­self, we are about to elect a new leader with a new vi­sion and a new plan to en­sure that we take the par­ty for­ward.”

He said he be­lieves the rea­son for all the at­tacks com­ing his way had to do with peo­ple be­liev­ing he want­ed to con­test the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader, but said his sup­port was ful­ly be­hind Beck­les.

Fol­low­ing is the lsit of can­di­dates for the PNM in­ter­nal elec­tion

Po­lit­i­cal Leader

Pen­ne­lope Beck­les

Chair­man

Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai

Mar­vin Gon­za­les

Chin­ua Al­leyne

Vice chair­man

Esau Mo­hammed

Paula Gopee-Scoon

Dr Amery Browne

Muham­mad Yunus Ibrahim

La­dy vice-chair­man

Don­na Cox

Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly

Gen­er­al sec­re­tary

Roger Boynes

Fos­ter Cum­mings

To­va Lin Sandy

As­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary

Ma­li­ka blair

Pa­tri­cia Alex­is

Trea­sur­er

Nal Ram­s­ingh

An­tho­ny Davis

Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer

Clay­ton Black­man

Cur­tis Tou­s­saint

Dr Hi­lary bernard

Je­lani Reid

PRO

Christo­pher George

Lisette Weekes

Faris al-Rawi

So­cial me­dia of­fi­cer

Symon de No­bri­ga

Do­minic Ro­main

Runako Williams

Krys­tle Hor­wood

Shawn Dube

Elec­tions of­fi­cer

Leslie Lynch

San­jiv Bood­hu

In­dar Paras­ram

Ter­rence Beepath

Field of­fi­cer

Richard Thomp­son

Er­ic William

Nolan Hop­kins

Ny­ron Bayne

Cur­tis Shade

Wel­fare of­fi­cer

Max­ine Richards

Ali­cia Leg­ere

Youth of­fi­cer

Josi­mar James

Aben Phillips-Brooks

ka­reem mar­celle

Op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer

Irene Hinds

Eber Steele-At­tong

Stern Barnes

Labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer 1

St Clair O’neil

An­drew Alves

David Taitt

Natasha Mo­hammed

Labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer 2

Ken­neth De­o­raj

Wayne Gransam