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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Rowley unveils Leaders in Service team

... urges youth to come out for PNM internals

by

985 days ago
20221103
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, 2nd from left, sits with his Leaders in Service team during the launch of their PNM internal election campaign at the Belmont Community Centre on Wednesday night. The other candidates are, from left, Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, Stuart Young, Faris Al-Rawi, Maxine Richards and Kazim Hosein.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, 2nd from left, sits with his Leaders in Service team during the launch of their PNM internal election campaign at the Belmont Community Centre on Wednesday night. The other candidates are, from left, Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, Stuart Young, Faris Al-Rawi, Maxine Richards and Kazim Hosein.

Courtesy Maxine Richards' Facebook page

Gen­er­al elec­tions aren’t far off and the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment has to start prepa­ra­tions from now, says En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who's seek­ing the chair­man­ship.

And Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has en­cour­aged youths to come for­ward and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the PNM and T&T.

Both spoke at the launch of the Lead­ers in Ser­vice can­di­dates for up­com­ing in­ter­nal ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion at Bel­mont Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. The LIS can­di­dates are Row­ley (Po­lit­i­cal leader), Young (chair­man), Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly (Vice chair­man), Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (La­dy vice chair­man un­op­posed), Fos­ter Cum­mings (Gen­er­al sec­re­tary un­op­posed), Pa­tri­cia Alex­is (As­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary), Kaz­im Ho­sein (Trea­sur­er), Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing (Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer), Faris Al-Rawi (PRO un­op­posed), Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus (Labour re­la­tions), In­dar Paras­ram (Elec­tions of­fi­cer), Ter­rence Beepath (Elec­tions of­fi­cer), Max­ine Richards (Wel­fare of­fi­cer), Je­niece Scott (Youth of­fi­cer), Kwasi Robin­son (So­cial me­dia of­fi­cer) and Irene Hinds (Op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer).

Row­ley is be­ing chal­lenged for lead­er­ship by for­mer PNM min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira, Ronald Boynes and Ju­nior Bar­rack. There are 23 oth­ers con­test­ing against the LIS team, in­clud­ing the Peo­ple's Cham­pi­ons team.

Young said the launch was the start of “a move­ment in our (Peo­ple's Na­tion­al) Move­ment. He said the LIS can­di­dates coined “our­selves un­der an ap­pro­pri­ate name - Lead­ers in Ser­vice.”

Young slammed those who were putting them­selves up for lead­er­ship whom he said spent time do­ing noth­ing but “... Crit­i­cis­ing and like lit­tle pot hounds, bark­ing at our an­kles as if they were Op­po­si­tion and now they want to put them­selves for­ward..."

Young said he'll en­gage the youths and bring them on board and the new ex­ec­u­tive will en­ter the 41 con­stituen­cies as it need­ed to get to the "ground" and un­der­stand from youths in com­mu­ni­ties what will make the dif­fer­ence.

Row­ley, who cheered loud­ly, said it was a good thing so many peo­ple of­fered them­selves to serve and it showed the PNM is a healthy de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion. He said he was hap­py the par­ty un­der his stew­ard­ship is as vig­or­ous as it is to­day.

He said he of­fered him­self to serve for an­oth­er term in the ex­ec­u­tive and he'd like to be­lieve what he heard from mem­bers dur­ing the meet­ing in recog­ni­tion of his name was en­dorse­ment of the work he's do­ing and his lead­er­ship. He said he was sat­is­fied, when the PNM is ex­am­ined be­tween 2010 and now, that it would be con­clud­ed it had made progress.

Row­ley said he stayed to con­test in 2020 elec­tions as he'd en­cour­aged a num­ber of youths to en­ter the po­lit­i­cal are­na and of­fer them­selves for pub­lic ser­vice. He said many did and he want­ed to en­sure they got the ben­e­fit of ex­po­sure and ex­pe­ri­ence for the pub­lic's ben­e­fit.

He said as he looked at the large gath­er­ing, it re­mind­ed him of a call he made in To­ba­go in an ear­li­er elec­tion, "When I said to young peo­ple, come for­ward and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for your coun­try."

"Tonight, I make that call to the PNM, those of you who of­fered your­self along­side a good com­ple­ment of olde r... ok, along­side a com­po­nent of ex­pe­ri­enced peo­ple: young peo­ple, come for­ward and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for this par­ty and this coun­try."

He thanked those who of­fered them­selves to do the work ahead in 2022 and be­yond, not­ing in a par­ty, it's hard work.

Row­ley not­ed de­trac­tors' com­plaints about "rig­ging" con­cern­ing the ear­ly vot­ing, which PNM is hav­ing for the first time. He said he was con­fi­dent that in the same way the par­ty in­sti­tut­ed the one man-one vote and oth­er changes, that it would "dis­tin­guish it­self" on De­cem­ber 4 when bal­lots are count­ed.

Row­ley thanked his Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy.

"When my ca­reer would have end­ed, I'd be able to say there's no con­stituen­cy - maybe one or two - that sup­port­ed its MP through thick and thin like Diego Mar­tin West."

Fos­ter to Row­ley's ri­vals: Rock so

Un­op­posed PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, who praised par­ty leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, ad­vised Row­ley's com­peti­tors to "rock so - we not vot­ing for you."

Cum­mings said some de­trac­tors who'd sat on the "shoul­der" for the last 10 years now want to en­ter the fast lane.

"Ab­solute­ly not - we re­ject you ... as the youths say 'Vote Noth­ing'."

Cum­mings said he was vot­ing for Stu­art Young for chair­man and would ad­vise con­stituen­cies to sup­port him. He said PoS North had “pro­duced a good son (Young), “and we ac­cept him and will use him" for the par­ty.

Cum­mings, who said the elec­tion was a se­ri­ous mat­ter, ad­vised mem­bers to treat it as a gen­er­al elec­tion. He said teams would be mo­bilised on vot­ing days to bring out peo­ple, aim­ing for the largest num­ber ever.

“Your vote is what we re­quire,” he said.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who is vy­ing for vice chair­man, said T&T is in a time of tran­si­tion and COVID-19 had made things very dif­fer­ent. She added that peo­ple are in tran­si­tion and so was the pol­i­tics. She said the PNM can­not be­come ir­rel­e­vant, so the elec­tion is very im­por­tant, as it showed the PNM tran­si­tion­ing and grow­ing. She said the par­ty will have to adapt to a “new T&T.”

The meet­ing al­so ob­served a minute’s si­lence over the pass­ing of late PNM sen­a­tor Dr Lester Hen­ry, whose fu­ner­al was ear­li­er in the day.

The LIS will present their can­di­dates on Sun­day in Diego Mar­tin.


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