Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

With a spe­cial Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gen­er­al Coun­cil on to­day, for­mer PNM ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions can­di­date Krys­tle Hor­wood has called for the par­ty to post­pone its con­stituen­cy elec­tions, which start on Wednes­day, and in­sti­tute an in­de­pen­dent au­dit of the mem­bers’ reg­is­ter to ad­dress long­stand­ing is­sues.

Hor­wood did so in a June 23 let­ter to PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings. Hor­wood had re­quest­ed a re­sponse from Cum­mings by last Fri­day - but none was re­ceived.

To­day’s spe­cial coun­cil meet­ing is ex­pect­ed to rat­i­fy is­sues for the elec­tion, in­clud­ing mem­ber­ship dues.

Hor­wood un­suc­cess­ful­ly sought the PNM’s so­cial me­dia of­fi­cer post in the 2022 and 2025 ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia queries about the re­quest­ed au­dit, Hor­wood said it’s dri­ven by one over­rid­ing con­cern: con­fi­dence.

“It’s clear that con­fi­dence in the elec­toral process re­quires con­fi­dence in the mem­ber­ship reg­is­ter up­on which that process is based,” Hor­wood said.

“There’s grow­ing lack of con­fi­dence in the gen­er­al sec­re­tary and sim­i­lar lack of con­fi­dence among many mem­bers in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship records and in­ter­nal elec­toral process­es. The pur­pose of an au­dit isn’t to un­der­mine the PNM but to re­store con­fi­dence in the in­tegri­ty of its de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions.”

She said rea­sons for an in­de­pen­dent au­dit in­clude con­cerns re­gard­ing the ac­cu­ra­cy/in­tegri­ty of the na­tion­al mem­ber­ship reg­is­ter; whether it re­flects the PNM’s cur­rent mem­ber­ship; ab­sence of au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments and con­cerns re­gard­ing fi­nan­cial re­port­ing to Gen­er­al Coun­cil,

“Al­so, there are pub­lic con­cerns re­gard­ing gov­er­nance and elec­tion in­tegri­ty raised by se­nior par­ty mem­bers, in­clud­ing those con­tained in MP Bri­an Man­ning’s re­cent cor­re­spon­dence con­cern­ing is­sues in his San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy. There are al­so mem­bers’ con­cerns that cor­re­spon­dence to the gen­er­al sec­re­tary has gone unan­swered, cre­at­ing per­cep­tion that le­git­i­mate con­cerns aren’t be­ing ad­dressed through par­ty process­es,” Hor­wood added

Her let­ter to Cum­mings stat­ed: “’Re­cent state­ments and dis­cus­sions’ re­gard­ing the ac­cu­ra­cy and in­tegri­ty of the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship records have raised se­ri­ous con­cerns that must be ad­dressed be­fore in­ter­nal elec­tions are con­duct­ed. These con­cerns aren’t new. Dur­ing the 2022 and 2025 in­ter­nal elec­tions, sim­i­lar is­sues were raised re­gard­ing the reg­is­ter’s ac­cu­ra­cy/in­tegri­ty.

“Among con­cerns were the pres­ence of de­ceased per­sons on mem­ber­ship lists; mem­ber­ship records ap­pear­ing out­dat­ed and not reg­u­lar­ly up­dat­ed; ab­sence of con­tact in­for­ma­tion for mem­bers, mak­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion dif­fi­cult; un­cer­tain­ty re­gard­ing the fi­nan­cial sta­tus and el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of cer­tain mem­bers; dif­fi­cul­ties en­coun­tered by can­di­dates and mem­bers seek­ing ac­cess to ac­cu­rate mem­ber­ship in­for­ma­tion.

“Such con­cerns across mul­ti­ple elec­tion cy­cles war­rant an in­de­pen­dent re­view be­fore fur­ther in­ter­nal elec­tions are con­duct­ed, Hor­wood stat­ed. She re­quest­ed the con­stituen­cy elec­tions be post­poned for 90 days to fa­cil­i­tate com­pre­hen­sive au­dit.”

Hor­wood sug­gest­ed that in­for­ma­tion in­clude the com­plete list of fi­nan­cial PNM mem­bers; ver­i­fi­ca­tion of mem­ber­ship dues and fi­nan­cial sta­tus of mem­bers; num­ber of reg­is­tered/ac­tive par­ty groups with­in each con­stituen­cy; mem­ber­ship com­po­si­tion of each par­ty group; con­sis­ten­cy/ac­cu­ra­cy of mem­ber­ship records across all con­stituen­cies, in­clud­ing To­ba­go; any dis­crep­an­cies be­tween mem­ber­ship records main­tained at con­stituen­cy and na­tion­al lev­els.

Hor­wood’s let­ter stat­ed that she’s aware of con­cerns raised at the Gen­er­al Coun­cil re­gard­ing in­con­sis­ten­cies be­tween mem­ber­ship in­for­ma­tion main­tained in To­ba­go and in­for­ma­tion main­tained cen­tral­ly.

“Such con­cerns fur­ther re­in­force the need for an in­de­pen­dent, com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the mem­ber­ship reg­is­ter.”

She sug­gest­ed that any au­dit be con­duct­ed by an in­de­pen­dent team ap­point­ed by the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, rather than by the gen­er­al sec­re­tary ‘s of­fice or any cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber, in or­der to avoid the per­cep­tion of con­flict of in­ter­est and to pre­serve con­fi­dence in the process.

Cum­mings didn’t re­spond to Guardian Me­dia queries yes­ter­day on Hor­wood’s con­cerns, in­clud­ing about him. How­ev­er, oth­er PNM of­fi­cials said they ex­pect­ed to­day’s coun­cil meet­ing will deal with some is­sues iden­ti­fied.