Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) stal­warts are rais­ing alarm over the par­ty’s pro­pos­al to host its in­ter­nal elec­tions by the end of June, a move they say risks fur­ther desta­bil­is­ing the al­ready shak­en par­ty.

On Mon­day, in­ter­im chair­man Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly an­nounced that a spe­cial gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing is sched­uled for Fri­day to fi­nalise the elec­tion date. The par­ty al­so in­tends to es­tab­lish an elec­tion su­per­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee to over­see the process.

All po­si­tions are ex­pect­ed to be con­test­ed, in­clud­ing po­lit­i­cal leader, chair­man, vice chair­man, la­dy vice chair­man, gen­er­al sec­re­tary, as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary, and sev­er­al of­fi­cer roles. The slate al­so in­cludes three deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers ap­point­ed by the po­lit­i­cal leader, and one from To­ba­go.

PNM stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira and for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford have voiced con­cern over the par­ty’s cur­rent in­sta­bil­i­ty, cit­ing the ab­sence of a po­lit­i­cal leader and the re­sult­ing in­com­plete ex­ec­u­tive.

“The par­ty had nev­er func­tioned with­out a leader in its his­to­ry,” Fer­reira said yes­ter­day, as he ques­tioned the role of Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les in the cur­rent lead­er­ship vac­u­um.

“If you could give her that con­fi­dence to lead the par­ty in the high­est of­fice in the land, the Par­lia­ment, why don’t you make her in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader? So, she has a role to play in the lead­er­ship of the par­ty,” he said.

He re­called the prece­dent set in 2010, when the par­ty filled va­can­cies fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Patrick Man­ning, chair­man Con­rad Enill and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Mar­tin Joseph. Dr Kei­th Row­ley, then po­lit­i­cal leader, had ap­point­ed Ash­ton Ford as gen­er­al sec­re­tary, a de­ci­sion lat­er rat­i­fied by the gen­er­al coun­cil.

“So why they can’t do the same thing with Pen­ny? Put her in as in­ter­im un­til the con­ven­tion. But you see the prob­lem is that it’s a num­ber of them as­pir­ing to be leader,” Fer­reira said.

Ford echoed those con­cerns, warn­ing that rush­ing the “one man, one vote” in­ter­nal elec­tion process could lead to con­fu­sion and er­rors.

“I be­lieve they want to get it out of the way. But get­ting it out of the way and hav­ing it as short no­tice is a recipe for chaos. Be­cause in hus­tling to do things, you might make mis­takes.”

Ford not­ed that a sani­tised list of valid elec­tors is es­sen­tial and cit­ed that he had to re­ject 10,000 ap­pli­cants be­fore the 2014 elec­tions. He rec­om­mend­ed stick­ing with the orig­i­nal Sep­tem­ber time­line for an or­der­ly and cred­i­ble con­ven­tion.

While Ford ac­knowl­edged Beck­les’ pop­u­lar­i­ty, he added: “There’s no need to rush in­to a lead­er­ship con­test.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath sug­gest­ed that while Beck­les is like­ly to win, he sus­pect­ed she may still face com­pe­ti­tion from Dr Amery Browne, Robert Le Hunte, and pos­si­bly Camille Robin­son-Reg­is. He said Stu­art Young may be a less like­ly con­tender due to his Gen­er­al Elec­tion loss.

“If Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is one of the nom­i­nees for po­lit­i­cal leader, I think the rank and file mem­ber­ship may very well go along with her be­ing both the po­lit­i­cal leader and the op­po­si­tion leader... they would want to get away from the dual-head­ed lead­er­ship,” he said.

Ra­goonath, how­ev­er, viewed the con­tro­ver­sy over the in­ter­im ap­point­ment of Gads­by-Dol­ly and Colm Im­bert as in­signif­i­cant.

In a brief re­sponse to the PNM Change­mak­ers 2025 group, which has been vo­cal­ly crit­i­cal of the par­ty, Dr Browne de­clined to re­spond di­rect­ly.

“I am not in­clined at this stage to pub­licly re­spond to any face­less anony­mous group that is be­ing used to ad­vance a par­tic­u­lar line of am­bi­tion,” he said.

In­stead, he reaf­firmed his com­mit­ment to a “more car­ing and rel­e­vant” PNM.

The Change­mak­ers, in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, said the spe­cial gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing set for Fri­day vi­o­lates the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ment of sev­en days’ no­tice.

The group has called for trans­paren­cy and the res­ig­na­tion of gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings.