The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment has held a ma­jor post elec­tion analy­sis about its de­feat, which most of the 41 can­di­dates at­tend­ed.

The post-mortem meet­ing on the re­cent gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat was held on Wednes­day. In­vi­tees were can­di­dates, con­stituen­cy chair­men and cam­paign man­agers. It was chaired by the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings and Chair­man Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly

Par­tic­i­pants told Guardian Me­dia that around three-quar­ters of the par­ty’s 41 can­di­dates at­tend­ed. They said the con­sen­sus on the rea­son for the PNM’s elec­tion de­feat was that the par­ty was dis­con­nect­ed from the pub­lic on the “ground”, while some cit­ed elec­tion day ma­chin­ery is­sues and a cou­ple of peo­ple ex­pressed con­cern about the al­leged “buy­ing of votes” by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

At­ten­dees came to the con­sen­sus that the PNM’s fo­cus now should be on re­build­ing and get­ting back in touch with the mem­ber­ship.

PNM sources said a cou­ple of speak­ers ques­tioned why cer­tain for­mer se­nior lead­er­ship of­fi­cials who had re­signed soon af­ter the de­feat, were not at the meet­ing. Par­ty sources said at least two such for­mer of­fi­cials had in­di­cat­ed they had pre­vi­ous en­gage­ments and would have been ab­sent from Wednes­day’s meet­ing.

Beck­les has been meet­ing with par­ty mem­bers in var­i­ous con­stituen­cies to get their thoughts on the elec­tion de­feat and what can be done to en­sure the PNM wins the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Mean­while, cur­rent PNM Field Of­fi­cer Ter­rence Beepath said he is yet to de­cide if he will con­test the post in the par­ty’s up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Beepath in­di­cat­ed this via a What­sApp mes­sage yes­ter­day. He said he was abroad and would re­turn to T&T on Sun­day.

Nom­i­na­tion day is on Mon­day when can­di­dates present their doc­u­ments to the PNM’s Elec­tion Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee.

Vot­ing in the par­ty’s elec­tion for 16 ex­ec­u­tive posts is June 22 at 41 polling sta­tions around T&T. It will be fol­lowed by the PNM’s elec­tion con­ven­tion on June 29 when the new ex­ec­u­tive will be in­stalled.

So far, those who have in­di­cat­ed their in­ten­tion to con­test are Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les (who is seek­ing the post of po­lit­i­cal leader), in­cum­bent of­fi­cers Irene Hinds (op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer), Max­ine Richards (wel­fare of­fi­cer), In­dar Paras­ram (elec­tions of­fi­cer) and Pa­tri­cia Alex­is

(as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary), as well as Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne (yet to say which post), at­tor­ney Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai, head­ing the Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­on slate (chair­man), Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca MP Do­minic Ro­main (so­cial me­dia of­fi­cer) and Tabaquite chair­man Cur­tis Shade (field of­fi­cer)

The peo­ple cur­rent­ly hold­ing the posts of so­cial me­dia of­fi­cer, youth of­fi­cer, labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer and trea­sur­er are not seek­ing re-elec­tion.

Mean­while, t