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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Political analysts want Penny to explain her role in PNM ‘losing its way’

by

Chester Sambrano
23 days ago
20250617

Po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors say Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les must ex­plain her role in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) de­cline, af­ter ad­mit­ting the par­ty has “lost its way” just days be­fore its in­ter­nal elec­tions on June 22.

Beck­les’ re­marks have been part of her re­cur­ring post-elec­tion nar­ra­tive. But po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed yes­ter­day said the state­ment, with­out specifics, does lit­tle to in­spire con­fi­dence.

“We’ve known for some time the PNM lost its way. But now that she’s said it, what did she do about it? At what point be­tween 2015 and 2025 did she and oth­ers recog­nise this? And who are the oth­ers?” he asked.

He point­ed to the link be­tween the PNM’s in­ter­nal struc­ture and its gov­er­nance, say­ing Beck­les can­not dis­tance her­self from the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion’s fail­ings.

“You don’t get to take a hands-off ap­proach. If you stayed qui­et to sur­vive the par­ty’s au­thor­i­ty, then say so. That’s part of hon­est po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship too.”

Mo­hammed said Beck­les’ cur­rent stance ap­pears to de­fend not her­self, but mem­bers of her “One PNM” slate—some of whom held key Cab­i­net port­fo­lios.

“Take a look at the team. Some of them were con­tro­ver­sial fig­ures from the last gov­ern­ment. When she says the par­ty lost its way, is she in­clud­ing them? Or is she ex­cus­ing them?”

He said Beck­les’ re­luc­tance to speak plain­ly could dam­age her cred­i­bil­i­ty.

“Why speak in para­bles? The par­ty is in cri­sis. Call names, say what went wrong, and who did what. If you’re re­build­ing, you can’t pro­tect every­one.”

He al­so warned that the Gov­ern­ment’s more ground­ed and peo­ple-cen­tred ap­proach may leave the PNM fur­ther be­hind if it fails to re­set prop­er­ly.

“She (Beck­les) has five years. Start over if you must. But if you’re still de­fend­ing dead weight, you’re not se­ri­ous about re­build­ing.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said Beck­les is us­ing the in­ter­nal race to uni­fy a di­vid­ed par­ty.

“She clear­ly sees di­vi­sion in the PNM. That’s why she’s push­ing the One PNM mes­sage,” he said.

“And she knows there are in­ter­nal forces work­ing against her slate.”

He de­scribed the re­marks as part of stan­dard in­ter­nal elec­tion cam­paign­ing.

“These things hap­pen be­fore par­ty votes. We saw it with the UNC. Peo­ple say dam­ag­ing things, but then they move on.”

With no gen­er­al elec­tion im­mi­nent, Ra­goonath said the par­ty has time to re­pair in­ter­nal wounds.

“We’re far from any na­tion­al poll. They have space to re­cov­er from any­thing said now.”

Both po­lit­i­cal ob­servers are con­vinced Beck­les must even­tu­al­ly aban­don her guard­ed tone.

“If she wants to lead—re­al­ly lead—she has to stop be­ing pas­sive-ag­gres­sive,” Mo­hammed said.

“You sur­vived the elec­tion. You’re un­op­posed. Say what hap­pened. Take con­trol. And stop car­ry­ing the weight of oth­ers who helped bring the par­ty down.”


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