Gail Alexan­der & DA­REECE PO­LO

Of­fi­cials of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) are mum on whether gen­er­al coun­cil mem­ber Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus has been “spo­ken to” or may face dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion for her cri­tique of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s state­ments on why the par­ty’s con­ven­tion was post­poned.

Both Bap­tiste-Primus and PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings had re­port­ed­ly braced Dr Row­ley at PNM’s Oc­to­ber 19 gen­er­al coun­cil on lead­er­ship mes­sag­ing is­sues and the con­ven­tion post­pone­ment. 

Coun­cil mem­bers said Cum­mings had got­ten up from his place at the head ta­ble and spo­ken from the floor. Bap­tiste-Primus vot­ed against con­ven­tion post­pone­ment while the ma­jor­i­ty of gen­er­al coun­cil at­ten­dees rat­i­fied post­pone­ment.

There were 70 votes in favour, with one against and five ab­sten­tions.

In a me­dia in­ter­view on Mon­day, Bap­tiste-Primus said Dr Row­ley’s re­cent com­ments on the is­sue were too “con­vo­lut­ed”, adding that he did not ex­plain what he meant by the “de­vel­op­ing po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion” that re­sult­ed in the con­ven­tion not be­ing held.

How­ev­er, Fer­di­nand ‘Fer­die’ Fer­reira, a stal­wart of the PNM and po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor, has ex­pressed his sup­port for Bap­tiste-Primus.

He em­pha­sised that the an­nounce­ment re­gard­ing the con­ven­tion’s can­cel­la­tion should have been made on­ly af­ter it had been rat­i­fied by the gen­er­al coun­cil. Ac­cord­ing to Fer­reira, Bap­tiste-Primus was en­tire­ly with­in her rights to raise these con­cerns pub­licly.

“The lead­er­ship, un­der the con­sti­tu­tion, has an au­thor­i­ty, some lever­age, in terms of de­ter­min­ing the di­rec­tion of the par­ty but the lead­er­ship is not a sub­sti­tute for the gen­er­al coun­cil. It (the de­ci­sion) is sub­ject to the ap­proval of the gen­er­al coun­cil,” Fer­reira said.

“If, and it’s quite pos­si­ble, that some cir­cum­stances might have de­vel­oped that the lead­er­ship felt, un­der the po­lit­i­cal leader, it was nec­es­sary to can­cel or post­pone the con­ven­tion, all they had to do was to make a rec­om­men­da­tion for the ap­proval of the gen­er­al coun­cil. All Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus is say­ing is that what you do first, you should have done sec­ond, what you do sec­ond you should have done first,” he con­tin­ued.

He added that she was sim­ply point­ing out a pro­ce­dur­al er­ror.

Fer­reira al­so as­sert­ed that Bap­tiste-Primus was en­ti­tled to voice her opin­ion, ar­gu­ing that her ques­tions were not on­ly le­git­i­mate but nec­es­sary in the in­ter­est of par­ty trans­paren­cy. He re­ject­ed me­dia por­tray­als of the dis­pute as ev­i­dence of deep­er rifts with­in the PNM. Fer­reira re­mind­ed the pub­lic that the PNM is a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tion, one that wel­comes in­ter­nal dis­course, even if it oc­ca­sion­al­ly plays out in the pub­lic do­main.

“There is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for all the se­man­tics that’s go­ing on,” he re­marked. “Jen­nifer Bap­tiste and Robert (Le Hunte) are en­ti­tled to their opin­ions and if, so be it, that it gets in­to the pub­lic do­main, noth­ing is wrong with that. As I’ve said be­fore, the PNM is not a se­cret or­der; it’s a peo­ple’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tion and mem­bers are en­ti­tled to ex­press their opin­ion.”

While Fer­reira stood by Bap­tiste-Primus, he al­so em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of ad­her­ing to the PNM con­sti­tu­tion. He ac­knowl­edged that Row­ley did the right thing by sub­se­quent­ly meet­ing with the gen­er­al coun­cil to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion. Ac­cord­ing to Fer­reira, the coun­cil is the par­ty’s supreme de­ci­sion-mak­ing body, with the on­ly en­ti­ty that can over­rule it be­ing the con­ven­tion it­self.

“The gen­er­al coun­cil rat­i­fy­ing it was a per­fect­ly le­git­i­mate de­ci­sion,” he ex­plained.

A source close to the pro­ceed­ings re­port­ed that at the gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing on Oc­to­ber 19, aside from Bap­tiste-Primus, there was no ma­jor con­tention. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that mem­bers of the coun­cil were giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press their con­cerns, a cus­tom­ary part of the meet­ing. Dur­ing this ses­sion, Bap­tiste-Primus re­port­ed­ly ac­cused Row­ley of mak­ing a “to­tal­i­tar­i­an” de­ci­sion by an­nounc­ing the post­pone­ment with­out first ob­tain­ing the coun­cil’s ap­proval.

The source, who was present at the meet­ing, ex­plained that Row­ley de­fend­ed his ac­tions by ask­ing mem­bers to trust his judge­ment as the po­lit­i­cal leader. He re­port­ed­ly ex­plained that the de­ci­sion to post­pone the con­ven­tion was made from a po­lit­i­cal stand­point and that the coun­cil would be asked to rat­i­fy the de­ci­sion at a lat­er meet­ing.

“He said, ‘Lis­ten, I want you all to trust me, I am the po­lit­i­cal leader. The de­ci­sion was tak­en from a po­lit­i­cal stand­point where we sat among the ex­ec­u­tive, took the de­ci­sion, and we say when we come to the next gen­er­al coun­cil it will be rat­i­fied,’” the source said.

Bap­tiste-Primus had al­so in­di­cat­ed that dur­ing the coun­cil meet­ing Dr Row­ley hint­ed at a De­cem­ber elec­tion how­ev­er, in re­sponse, a PNM source sought to down­play the sug­ges­tion say­ing he was just test­ing the wa­ters.

The PNM con­sti­tu­tion out­lines the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the po­lit­i­cal leader in Ar­ti­cle 19, stat­ing that the po­lit­i­cal leader must con­sult with par­ty of­fi­cials such as the chair­man, vice-chair­man, and gen­er­al sec­re­tary on po­lit­i­cal mat­ters.

Mean­while, Ar­ti­cle 17.4 (h) as­serts that the An­nu­al Con­ven­tion is the high­est au­thor­i­ty with­in the par­ty and holds the ul­ti­mate de­ci­sion-mak­ing pow­er.