Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne and at least four in­cum­bent Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers will file nom­i­na­tion pa­pers next Mon­day to con­test posts when the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions are held in June.

Var­i­ous of­fi­cials in the PNM con­firmed the de­vel­op­ments yes­ter­day.

Al­leyne al­so re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia’s queries on his de­ci­sion to con­test a post, say­ing he had re­signed from the PNM’s Elec­tion Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (ESC).

The PNM’s re­cent­ly held Gen­er­al Coun­cil agreed on the in­ter­nal elec­tions fol­low­ing the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion de­feat by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

The com­mit­tee will over­see the process. The 17-mem­ber team head­ed by Richard Wal­cott had su­per­vised the last PNM in­ter­nal elec­tions in 2022. The ESC yes­ter­day of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced the com­mence­ment of the nom­i­na­tion process for the in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Nom­i­na­tion Day is next Mon­day from 9 am to 5 pm.

Vot­ing will be done at sta­tions in the 41 con­stituen­cies on Sun­day, June 22. The bal­lots will be pre­sent­ed to the PNM’s elec­tion con­ven­tion on June 29.

Six­teen po­si­tions will be con­test­ed.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, at the re­cent coun­cil meet­ing, had de­clared she would seek the post of po­lit­i­cal leader.

Among cur­rent of­fice­hold­ers who, up to yes­ter­day, con­firmed they would seek their cur­rent posts again were Irene Hinds (op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer), In­dar Paras­ram (elec­tions of­fi­cer), Pa­tri­cia Alex­is (as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary), and Max­ine Richards (wel­fare of­fi­cer).

May­or Al­leyne had un­suc­cess­ful­ly sought the post of gen­er­al sec­re­tary against in­cum­bent Fos­ter Cum­mings in 2022 and re­cent­ly lost by two votes to Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly for the post of in­ter­im chair­man.

Yes­ter­day, Al­leyne said, “I have re­ceived many calls and mes­sages from con­stituen­cy chair­man, par­ty mem­bers and stal­warts across T&T ask­ing me to make my­self avail­able as a can­di­date in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

“The mem­ber­ship is call­ing for fresh young faces with new in­no­v­a­tive ideas to chart the way for­ward for the par­ty at all lev­els. As a con­se­quence, I have re­signed from the Elec­tions Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee and will be meet­ing with my par­ty group over the week­end to seek their sup­port pri­or to fil­ing nom­i­na­tion pa­pers on Mon­day.”

Al­leyne added, “I look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with our new po­lit­i­cal leader to re­turn to gov­ern­ment by 2030.”

Al­leyne de­clined to com­ment on if he would seek the gen­er­al sec­re­tary’s post again.

Mean­while, in­cum­bent Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Cum­mings was among those who did not an­swer calls on whether they would seek posts again.

Oth­ers were La­dy Vice chair­man Camille Robin­son- Reg­is, Chair­man Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, PRO Faris Al-Rawi and Field Of­fi­cer Ter­rence Beepath.

Par­ty sources said al­most all of them will like­ly seek the posts again.

In­cum­bent So­cial Me­dia Of­fi­cer Kwasi Robin­son, Youth Of­fi­cer Je­niece Scott, Labour Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus, Trea­sur­er Kaz­im Ho­sein and Vice Chair­man Colm Im­bert re­cent­ly con­firmed they would not seek re-elec­tion.

Mal­abar Mau­si­ca MP Do­minic Ro­main said he would seek the post of So­cial Me­dia Of­fi­cer, which he had con­test­ed be­fore.

Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for can­di­dates were avail­able yes­ter­day and will be avail­able to­mor­row at PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain.