Ke­jan Haynes 

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The PNM has can­celled its up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tion which, ac­cord­ing to PNM sources, was a shock not just to the pub­lic but mem­bers of the par­ty.

A re­lease is­sued by the par­ty yes­ter­day sim­ply stat­ed, “The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment wish­es to ad­vise that its 51st An­nu­al Con­ven­tion, as well as the in­ter­nal elec­tion, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Sun­day, No­vem­ber 17, 2024, has been can­celled.”

When asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on what that meant, mem­bers said ei­ther chair­man Stu­art Young, gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings or PRO Faris Al-Rawi would be best suit­ed to an­swer.

Guardian Me­dia caught up with Cum­mings af­ter the sit­ting of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee of the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day evening.

Cum­mings would on­ly say, “I have no fur­ther com­ments on that. I was very clear in the re­lease on what the po­si­tion is.”

He was re­mind­ed that the re­lease said “can­celled” and not “post­poned.”

He was al­so told the an­nounce­ment came short­ly af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said dur­ing his Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion that this may be his “swan song.”

Asked if he had a com­ment on that, Cum­mings said, “No no.”

Told that oth­er par­ty mem­bers seemed to be caught off guard, Cum­mings said, “You can re­fer that one to the Prime Min­is­ter.”

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment yes­ter­day.

The sur­prise an­nounce­ment has al­so raised ques­tions about an im­pend­ing elec­tion day.

Yes­ter­day’s an­nounce­ment al­so raised ques­tions with­in the Op­po­si­tion. One UNC MP said jok­ing­ly as the Par­lia­men­tary ses­sion end­ed, “I hope you are here to ask ques­tions about democ­ra­cy with­in the PNM. You are al­ways in­ter­est­ed in democ­ra­cy with­in the UNC.”

The PNM has pre­vi­ous­ly post­poned a par­ty con­ven­tion sched­uled for No­vem­ber 2010 to March 2011.

When asked for com­ment on the de­vel­op­ment, PNM stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira said, “I can on­ly as­sume that they are wait­ing for the se­lec­tion of all par­ty can­di­dates and wait for one big bang next year.”

He said he be­lieves that’s be­cause the Prime Min­is­ter has al­ready cho­sen a date for the elec­tion.