Gail Alexan­der

Two peo­ple who held UNC mem­ber­ship in their long-time pre­vi­ous years are “fight­ing” PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley for the PNM’s lead­er­ship — and Row­ley heads one of two teams which are con­test­ing in the PNM’s up­com­ing elec­tions.

 Cam­paign pic­tures show two teams. One is “We The Peo­ple” (WTP), head­ed by Row­ley, in red with the Bal­isi­er en­signia. This com­pris­es some in­cum­bent PNM of­fi­cers and most­ly min­is­ters. 

There’s al­so an­oth­er group in white, in­clud­ing at­tor­ney Farai Hove Ma­si­sai. 

The PNM’s 16 ex­ec­u­tive posts are up for grabs at the PNM’s No­vem­ber 26-27 and De­cem­ber 4 vot­ing process­es.

 Forty-two nom­i­nees were re­vealed on Mon­day by PNM’s elec­tion su­per­vi­so­ry team. 

Row­ley is be­ing chal­lenged for the lead­er­ship by more peo­ple than have ever chal­lenged him be­fore. For­mer PNM min­is­ter Karen Nunez Tesheira from the Man­ning PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, at­tor­ney Ronald Boynes, and Gen­er­al Coun­cil mem­ber Ju­nior Barack. 

Row­ley was chal­lenged in 2014 for the lead­er­ship by cur­rent Plan­ning Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. She lost with 1,315 votes to his 18,121. He was un­op­posed in the 2018 PNM elec­tions.

 Nunez-Tesheira re-emerged in 2021 on a UNC round­table and has con­tin­ued to crit­i­cize the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion’s man­age­ment. 

At­tor­ney Boynes un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed PNM’s vice chair­man­ship in 2018 when Row­ley chas­tised him for lack­ing al­le­giance to PNM by “be­ing a PNM one day and a UNC the next.” 

Boynes said in 1996, when he was a com­mu­ni­ty work­er, a friend sug­gest­ed he join UNC, which he did, but he re­scind­ed the UNC mem­ber­ship six weeks af­ter. 

Boynes said he’s been in PNM for 25 years, was San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tion chair­man and worked at var­i­ous lev­els. His broth­er Roger was a sports min­is­ter un­der the Man­ning PNM. 

Boynes was le­gal ad­vis­er to Beck­les’ “Team Pen­ny” when she un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Row­ley . 

Boynes said he in­tends to reach out to all  in­clud­ing Cab­i­net mem­bers and Beck­les. 

His theme is em­pow­er­ment and re­spect for peo­ple, and “As a leader, I’ll wel­come peo­ple of all stripes,” he added.

 Project man­ag­er Barack, was a UNC sen­a­tor from 1994 to 1995. He said, “left UNC in 1998-99 and joined PNM in 2022. I worked with Roger and Ronald Boynes in San­gre Grande as per­son­al as­sis­tant to Roger as sports min­is­ter. Then as an ad­vis­er/per­son­al as­sis­tant to Ronald when he was cor­po­ra­tion chair­man. “ Barack, run­ning in­de­pen­dent­ly, said he was nom­i­nat­ed by a Lopinot Bon Air PNM group which he’d chaired when Cher­rie Ann Crichlow-Cock­burn was PNM MP . 

His theme is the re­la­tion­ship be­tween par­ty and gov­ern­ment and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. He’s been in­stru­men­tal in form­ing sev­er­al plans.

PNM polls show two slates.

Out of the 16 in­cum­bents in PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive, four aren’t con­test­ing: out­go­ing chair­man Colm Im­bert; Trea­sur­er Howard Chin Lee; Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Overand Pad­more; and So­cial Me­dia Of­fi­cer Avinash Singh. 

Eight min­is­ters are among the nom­i­nees for the up­com­ing race—Row­ley, Stu­art Young, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, Faris Al-Rawi, Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Bri­an Man­ning, Fos­ter Cum­mings, and Kaz­im Ho­sein .

 Eight in­cum­bents on PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive are con­test­ing : Row­ley (leader), Daniel Dook­ie (as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary), Ab­don Ma­son (Field Of­fi­cer), In­dar Paras­ram (Elec­tions Of­fi­cer), Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus (Labour Re­la­tions), Ndale Young (youth of­fi­cer) In ad­di­tion, in­cum­bents Robin­son-Reg­is (La­dy Vice Chair­man) and Cum­mings (Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary) are un­op­posed.Al­so elect­ed un­op­posed is WTP’s Al Rawi for PRO – a post which he held in 2014 up to Sep­tem­ber 2015 when PNM won gen­er­al elec­tions and he be­came At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. 

Seek­ing PNM chair­man­ship are at­tor­neys WTP’s Young, at­tor­ney Ma­sai­sai, and Ken Butch­er (for­mer sports­man  ex-NAR San Juan MP/Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary) 

PNM of­fi­cials con­firmed Ma­sai­sai heads the He­li­co­nia Foun­da­tion, said to be a PNM as­so­ciate group. 

Some mem­bers are al­so con­test­ing posts, in­clud­ing Janelle John-Bates (as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary), ex-coun­cil­lor Keno Romero (Elec­tions Of­fi­cer), An­tho­ny Davis ( Trea­sur­er), Ron­delle Don­awa (Vice Chair­man), and Kwasi Robin­son (So­cial Me­dia Of­fi­cer). 

WTP’s Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter, Ho­sei­nis, is seek­ing Trea­sur­er against Davis and Sal­lian Holdip- Fran­cis.

WTP’s Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing, who was PRO, is con­test­ing as Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer against COSTATT lec­tur­er Clay­ton Black­man, who un­suc­cess­ful­ly sought the post in 2014 and 2018 PNM polls.

 Apart from Tesheira,  is al­so for­mer MP Ali­cia Hospedales, seek­ing wel­fare of­fi­cer against WTP’s Max­ine Richards.

side­bar

Crews from San Fer­nan­do East, West com­pet­ing.

A num­ber of San Fer­nan­do East and West PN­Mites are al­so con­test­ing. 

* San Fer­nan­do East MP/Min­is­ter Bri­an Man­ning  seek­ing Vice Chair­man against WTP’s Gads­by-Dol­ly and for­mer San Fer­nan­do cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor Don­awa.

 * Long­stand­ing San­Fer­nan­do East unit IT con­sul­tant Eber Steel-At­tong, seek­ing to trans­form PNM to fu­tur­is­tic stand­ing, is seek­ing Op­er­a­tion Of­fi­cer against in­cum­bent Irene Hinds (WTP). At­tong ran un­suc­cess­ful­ly for the po­si­tion in 2014 and 2018, as well as for San Fer­nan­dio East in 2015. 

*In­cum­bent Elec­tion Of­fi­cer WTP’s Paras­ram is vy­ing against San Fer­nan­do East ex-coun­cil­lor Leslie Lynch, Cen­tral mem­ber Vic­tor Phillips, and for­mer North Coun­cil­lor Romeo.

 * Ter­rence Beepath (San Fer­nan­do West cam­paign man­ag­er) is seek­ing Field Of­fi­cer against in­cum­bent Ma­son, Moru­ga chair­man David Trim, To­co ‘s Jose Tidd and Tabaquite’s Cur­tis Shade (WTP)