Kay-Marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The pres­sure is mount­ing on San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning fol­low­ing his pub­lic clash with his own par­ty, with an­oth­er arm of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) now crit­i­cis­ing his de­ci­sion to take the dis­pute in­to the pub­lic do­main.

The PNM’s Na­tion­al Youth League has joined the par­ty’s lead­er­ship and Women’s League in ex­press­ing con­cern over Man­ning’s con­duct, warn­ing that the ac­tions of elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives can af­fect the par­ty’s abil­i­ty to at­tract young peo­ple.

In a state­ment on Mon­day, the youth arm of the par­ty said, “The PNM’s Na­tion­al Youth League ex­press­es our con­cern about the pub­lic state­ments made by the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for San Fer­nan­do East, Mr Bri­an Man­ning, with re­spect to the San Fer­nan­do East Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive and the wider Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

“We are con­cerned that the youth rep­re­sen­ta­tives in San Fer­nan­do East Con­stituen­cy have been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by an un­for­tu­nate dis­pute that has been brought in­to the pub­lic do­main, de­spite the on­go­ing in­ter­nal res­o­lu­tion process. The con­duct of our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives great­ly im­pacts the Par­ty’s abil­i­ty to at­tract young peo­ple; not just in San Fer­nan­do East, but na­tion­wide.”

The league added: “The Na­tion­al Youth League re­spects the right to raise con­cerns and seek an­swers. How­ev­er, that right does not re­move the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­spect the es­tab­lished struc­tures and process­es of the Par­ty.

“When a process in line with the Par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion has al­ready been ini­ti­at­ed to ad­dress mat­ters which arise from time to time, it should be al­lowed to run its course.

“The Youth League there­fore con­sid­ers it un­for­tu­nate that the youth of San Fer­nan­do East and their lead­er­ship struc­ture have been drawn in­to these grave­ly un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances.

“In­ter­nal dis­agree­ments must not be al­lowed to weak­en the con­fi­dence of our young peo­ple in the Par­ty or un­der­mine the struc­tures through which they par­tic­i­pate and lead. The con­fi­dence of our young peo­ple should not be erod­ed, but main­tained at all cost.”

The crit­i­cism fol­lowed a sim­i­lar state­ment from the PNM’s Na­tion­al Women’s League, which al­so crit­i­cised Man­ning for tak­ing the dis­pute pub­lic and called on him to re­spect the par­ty’s in­ter­nal process.

Man­ning has pub­licly al­leged cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal­i­ty in­volv­ing el­e­ments with­in the par­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly for­mer San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, and has ques­tioned whether po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son is will­ing or able to ad­dress his con­cerns.

The PNM lead­er­ship has strong­ly re­ject­ed his claim that those con­cerns were ig­nored, say­ing an in­quiry was es­tab­lished and a ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise in­volv­ing par­ty groups in San Fer­nan­do East re­mains un­der­way.

On Man­ning’s al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal­i­ty in­volv­ing Alex­is, PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les and deputy po­lit­i­cal leader San­jiv Bood­hu, who is part of the three-mem­ber in­quiry com­mit­tee, chal­lenged him to pro­vide the com­mit­tee with any ev­i­dence in his pos­ses­sion or take the mat­ter di­rect­ly to the po­lice.

But as the crit­i­cism of Man­ning grows, PNM stal­wart and for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford is point­ing the fin­ger at po­lit­i­cal leader Beck­les-Robin­son.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia by tele­phone yes­ter­day, Ford said he be­lieves the es­ca­lat­ing dis­pute could have been avoid­ed had Beck­les-Robin­son in­ter­vened di­rect­ly when Man­ning first raised his con­cerns.

Ford al­so ques­tioned why Man­ning was ad­vised to put his con­cerns in writ­ing in­stead of the po­lit­i­cal leader bring­ing him and Alex­is to­geth­er in an at­tempt to re­solve the mat­ter.

Ford said that, in the past, in­ter­nal dis­putes were re­solved af­ter se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials brought the rel­e­vant par­ties to­geth­er for di­rect talks.

He said the San Fer­nan­do East dis­pute should have been han­dled in a sim­i­lar man­ner and ac­cused Beck­les-Robin­son of fail­ing to make de­ci­sive de­ci­sions.

Ford said, “What we are wit­ness­ing is a po­lit­i­cal leader who is afraid to face the mu­sic. She is not lead­ing from the front. Al­ways send­ing peo­ple... I’m afraid that the sit­u­a­tion will get worse if the leader doesn’t come down and start deal­ing with the is­sues di­rect­ly.”

Ford warned that the sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing Man­ning “will not get bet­ter” un­less the po­lit­i­cal leader be­gins deal­ing with the is­sues di­rect­ly and in a more trans­par­ent man­ner.

Ford al­so said the ver­i­fi­ca­tion of par­ty groups, es­pe­cial­ly in San Fer­nan­do East, must be close­ly mon­i­tored, claim­ing there are con­cerns with­in the par­ty about the le­git­i­ma­cy of some groups ahead of con­stituen­cy elec­tions.

But af­ter pub­licly air­ing a se­ries of al­le­ga­tions against his con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive and re­peat­ed­ly chal­leng­ing the par­ty’s han­dling of his con­cerns, Man­ning now ap­pears to have gone qui­et.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to him yes­ter­day, he de­clined to speak on the is­sue, re­spond­ing on­ly: “No com­ment at this time. Thank you.”

Mean­while, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the fall­out is al­so cre­at­ing pres­sure on PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings.

Sources say mem­bers of the par­ty’s Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive want Cum­mings to step down.

The calls come amid con­cerns raised in­ter­nal­ly about Cum­mings’ han­dling of the San Fer­nan­do East dis­pute.

Guardian Me­dia has been told some mem­bers be­lieve ques­tions al­so need to be an­swered about de­ci­sions made dur­ing his tenure in gov­ern­ment.

Some peo­ple are al­so ques­tion­ing whether his han­dling of the cur­rent dis­pute is in­tend­ed to shield Alex­is.

Cum­mings avoid­ed an­swer­ing ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the PNM’s press con­fer­ence on Mon­day.

He al­so did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment up to press time yes­ter­day.

At­tempts to con­tact Alex­is were al­so un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.