Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ny Beck­les says she will seek the post of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal leader when the par­ty holds its elec­tion con­ven­tion on June 29 - and all speak­ers at the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil last night sup­port­ed that po­si­tion.

This was in­di­cat­ed by PNM PRO Faris Al-Rawi, af­ter the coun­cil met in spe­cial ses­sion at PNM’s Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters from 5.30 pm to dis­cuss a date for the spe­cial elec­tion con­ven­tion.

Al-Rawi said the Gen­er­al Coun­cil felt there should be uni­ty of the of­fices of po­lit­i­cal leader and Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“The anom­aly is the fact that the Op­po­si­tion Leader doesn’t sit in lead­er­ship of the par­ty and that is there­fore some­thing we’re very con­cerned to put right as quick­ly as pos­si­ble ... the Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so ac­knowl­edged that this elec­tion for po­lit­i­cal leader is a very open de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process and all con­tenders are wel­come,” Al- Rawi said dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing af­ter the meet­ing.

Al-Rawi said some of the coun­cil’s con­ver­sa­tions in­volved the “truth­ful dis­cus­sion that a leader of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty is an es­sen­tial of­fice.” He said he per­son­al­ly in­tend­ed to sup­port Beck­les for po­lit­i­cal leader, “be­cause you can’t be con­fined to on­ly be speak­ing in that ca­pac­i­ty as Op­po­si­tion Leader and in Par­lia­ment, you want to have the abil­i­ty to speak as the Leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment,”

Al-Rawi said at the meet­ing he moved a res­o­lu­tion, which was de­bat­ed at length by the 100-plus at­ten­dees. It re­sult­ed in a de­ci­sion by all - ex­cept for two per­sons who ab­stained - for the par­ty to have a spe­cial con­ven­tion on June 29 to elect all 16 of­fi­cers of the PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive

These are po­lit­i­cal leader, chair­man, vice chair­man, la­dy vice chair­man, gen­er­al sec­re­tary, as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary, trea­sur­er, ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer, PRO, labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer, elec­tions of­fi­cer, field of­fi­cer, wel­fare of­fi­cer, youth of­fi­cer, op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer and so­cial me­dia of­fi­cer.

Al-Rawi said the coun­cil ex­pressed the view that all of­fi­cers should re­sign and they will con­tin­ue serv­ing on­ly up to the elec­tion of the new of­fi­cers who will suc­ceed them. Some of­fi­cers’ terms do not ex­pire un­til 2026.

Vot­ing for the posts will be done on the week­end be­fore the June 29 con­ven­tion - June 22 - in the 41 con­stituen­cies. It will be done on the one-man/one-vote sys­tem. The re­sult of the bal­lot will then be tak­en to the June 29 con­ven­tion.

In keep­ing with nor­mal pro­vi­sions for short elec­tion pe­ri­ods such as this, the par­ty has waived the re­quire­ment for mem­bers to have up-to-date fi­nan­cial stand­ing in or­der to vote.

Al-Rawi said the 17-mem­ber elec­tion su­per­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee, which served for the PNM’s No­vem­ber 2022 in­ter­nal elec­tion, will again func­tion for this in­ter­nal elec­tion. The com­mit­tee will deal with the nom­i­na­tion day date.

Al-Rawi said the par­ty has kept to its prece­dent of hav­ing a spe­cial elec­tion con­ven­tion when it has had to choose a po­lit­i­cal leader in ur­gent cir­cum­stances.