Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai-led Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons slate which is con­test­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions, has made it clear that it has no as­so­ci­a­tion with the anony­mous group call­ing it­self the PNM Change­mak­ers 2025.

The Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons is­sued a state­ment on this late Thurs­day evening.

Ma­sai­sai is con­test­ing the post of PNM chair­man. His slate will be launched soon. Sev­er­al Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons mem­bers—in­clud­ing Ma­sai­sai—first con­test­ed posts in the par­ty’s pre­vi­ous elec­tions in 2022.

The Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons stat­ed that it had not­ed with con­cern a so­cial me­dia post claim­ing that the Change­mak­ers un­masked them­selves af­ter Ma­sai­sai an­nounced his can­di­da­cy.

How­ev­er, the Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­on said, “This in­fer­ence is both re­gret­table and mis­lead­ing. The Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons team cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly dis­tances it­self from any as­so­ci­a­tion with the group iden­ti­fied as PNM Change­mak­ers 2025, which has launched an anony­mous on­line whis­per­ing cam­paign tar­get­ing se­nior fig­ures with­in the PNM fol­low­ing the re­cent gen­er­al elec­tions.

“Whis­per cam­paigns, by their very na­ture, thrive on ru­mour, avoid ac­count­abil­i­ty, and aim to desta­bilise. They are fun­da­men­tal­ly at odds with the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues of our great PNM in­sti­tu­tion. We con­demn such tac­tics with­out reser­va­tion.”

The Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons added, “Whether the Face­book user’s post was born of mis­chief or mis­un­der­stand­ing, the at­tri­bu­tion is false, harm­ful, and must be set right ... We do not and can­not sup­port face­less, name­less cam­paigns that seek to di­vide and con­quer.

“Since 2022, our team has stood bold­ly and pub­licly- putting names, faces, and prin­ci­ples to our vi­sion for a more trans­par­ent, in­clu­sive, and mem­ber-dri­ven PNM. Led by Mr Hove Ma­sai­sai, we were the first and on­ly youth-led slate to chal­lenge a sit­ting min­is­te­r­i­al team en­dorsed by the then po­lit­i­cal leader and prime min­is­ter, Dr the Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley through a cam­paign root­ed in ser­vice, courage, and con­vic­tion.”

The Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons con­tin­ued, “We did not hide. We did not whis­per. We pooled our re­sources, mount­ed a grass­roots cam­paign, and con­nect­ed mean­ing­ful­ly with mem­bers from To­ba­go to Point Fortin, lis­ten­ing, learn­ing, and shap­ing The Peo­ple’s Voice Man­i­festo—the on­ly mem­ber-in­formed in­ter­nal elec­tions man­i­festo of its kind at the time. Would a team with such a track record of open­ness and bold­ness now choose to hide be­hind shad­ows and whis­pers?”

The group stat­ed that its mem­bers have nev­er and will nev­er re­sort to se­cre­cy or ma­nip­u­la­tion to suc­ceed.

“We stand on truth, faith, and the be­lief that mean­ing­ful change must be earned, not en­gi­neered in the shad­ows. Mr Hove Ma­sai­sai’s track record is em­blem­at­ic of this ap­proach. For over a decade, he’s been a fear­less con­trib­u­tor to PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil and ad­vis­er to its var­i­ous lead­ers, speak­ing up for peo­ple, prin­ci­ples, and par­ty, even when it was un­pop­u­lar to do so.

“His first al­le­giance is to God and his fam­i­ly, and his sec­ond is to the peo­ple he serves. He acts not for ap­plause, but out of a deep sense of du­ty, of­ten stand­ing alone when con­science de­mands it. It is for this rea­son that the Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons and its sup­port­ers once again place their full sup­port be­hind his bid for chair­man­ship. His qual­i­fi­ca­tions are undis­putable, his in­tegri­ty, res­olute, his heart for ser­vice—un­matched.”

The Change­mak­ers group, which is yet to re­veal its mem­bers, has been tak­ing is­sue with the re­cent changes in the PNM, in­clud­ing the elec­tion of the chair­man, and vice-chair­man and has al­so called for Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings to go.

Mean­while, the PNM will hold Nom­i­na­tion Day on Mon­day when mem­bers in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing var­i­ous posts in the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive will of­fi­cial­ly file their pa­pers for the in­ter­nal elec­tions.

The elec­tions will take place at the end of June.