Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

With the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in­ter­nal elec­tions set for to­day, ten­sion is mount­ing as mem­bers have for­mal­ly ex­pressed con­cern over the in­tegri­ty of the vot­ing process.

The slate, led by prospec­tive chair­man can­di­date Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai, has writ­ten to the par­ty’s Elec­tions Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, call­ing for ur­gent clar­i­fi­ca­tion on key pro­ce­dur­al is­sues.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day to un­veil the slate’s man­i­festo, prospec­tive Labour Re­la­tions can­di­date St Clair O’Neil stat­ed that mem­bers were still await­ing a re­sponse from the com­mit­tee af­ter for­mal­ly flag­ging is­sues re­lat­ing to the in­tegri­ty of the one man, one vote process.

“We saw some re­leas­es from the Elec­tion Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee deal­ing with some of the is­sues that we raised in terms of the de­f­i­n­i­tion of elec­tion of­fi­cers, pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers, etcetera. The point I was rais­ing is that we have a wide range of per­sons rep­re­sent­ing them­selves in this elec­tion; not every­one is fa­mil­iar with the process, so it can­not be said that it is known. What does that mean? We need our is­sues re­solved, and we have our con­cerns.” 

Over 100,000 PNM mem­bers are el­i­gi­ble to vote in the in­ter­nal elec­tions.

The race will see two slates, the One PNM team un­der Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ lead­er­ship and The Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons led by at­tor­ney Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai, chal­leng­ing each oth­er, with 30 in­de­pen­dents vy­ing for the 17 ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions up for grabs.

A to­tal of 50 can­di­dates will be con­test­ing the elec­tions.

O’Neil con­firmed that con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to le­gal ac­tion if the process is found to be lack­ing in trans­paren­cy or fair­ness.

“We have our peo­ple who will be on the ground to­mor­row. We will be look­ing on and doc­u­ment­ing. We want to be­lieve that this process will be smooth and there will be no ma­jor is­sues; how­ev­er, we are mind­ful of what is at stake, and for that rea­son, we are pre­pared to do what needs to be done if it aris­es.”

Amid the ris­ing ten­sion, Ma­sai­sai al­so took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­tance his team from re­cent per­son­al at­tacks and on­line smear cam­paigns cir­cu­lat­ing with­in PNM cir­cles.

“We are not about mud­sling­ing; some per­sons see it as part of the pol­i­tics, but in this gen­er­a­tion, I could on­ly speak to the mil­len­ni­als and my gen­er­a­tion. We want to see a dif­fer­ent brand of pol­i­tics.”

On Fri­day, out­go­ing chair­man of the Women’s League Camille Robin­son-Reg­is took to Face­book to con­demn the ac­tions.

“I’m deeply sad­dened by the fact that this in­ter­nal elec­tion has turned in­to the bash­ing of peo­ple who gen­uine­ly care for and have worked dili­gent­ly for our beloved par­ty and coun­try,” she said.

Mas­sai­sai al­so pushed back against the Trinci­ty/Mal­oney MP’s claim that “all ah we is one fam­i­ly”. 

He al­leged that his mem­bers were left out of crit­i­cal par­ty-re­lat­ed talks. 

“We ask the One Team to know there is one PNM, so this set of di­vi­sive­ness is not ben­e­fi­cial to any­one.”

Ma­sai­sai al­so re­spond­ed to re­cent po­lit­i­cal en­dorse­ments, no­tably that of for­mer par­ty vice chair­man Colm Im­bert, who threw his sup­port be­hind Beck­les and her “One PNM” slate.

While he ac­knowl­edged Beck­les as a re­spect­ed leader, Ma­sai­sai dis­missed the weight of Im­bert’s en­dorse­ment.

“We think that the can­di­dates that we brought for­ward here are the most com­pe­tent that the PNM has to of­fer at this time, so we put lit­tle weight to what Mr Im­bert has en­dorsed,” he said.

Cum­mings de­fends vot­ing process

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary prospec­tive can­di­date Fos­ter Cum­mings, mean­while, has de­fend­ed the par­ty’s vot­ing process, dis­miss­ing crit­i­cisms from with­in the ranks and call­ing for uni­ty ahead of the vote.

Cum­mings is con­test­ing the post un­der team One PNM, led by Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. Yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons slate raised con­cerns ahead of to­day’s vote.

In re­cent weeks, a fac­tion known as the “PNM Change­mak­ers” raised ques­tions about the in­tegri­ty of the mem­ber­ship list.

The group al­so ex­pressed con­cerns about trans­paren­cy in the lead-up to the elec­tion. How­ev­er, Cum­mings, who is seek­ing re-elec­tion, in­sist­ed the process is above board.

“The process is no dif­fer­ent from what we em­ployed in pre­vi­ous in­ter­nal elec­tions. As a mat­ter of fact, the com­mit­tee is the same com­mit­tee that was ap­point­ed to su­per­vise the elec­tion for the con­ven­tion that was post­poned in No­vem­ber of last year, and there­fore, I have no dif­fi­cul­ty so far with the com­mit­tee’s work.”

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Cum­mings al­so re­spond­ed to claims of a deep­en­ing fall­out with­in the par­ty stem­ming from the in­ter­nal elec­tions.

“At the end of the day, po­lit­i­cal con­tests among in­di­vid­u­als some­times have some lev­el of flak or mud­sling­ing, but at the end of the day, the PNM is a 70-year-old or­gan­i­sa­tion, and af­ter the in­ter­nal elec­tion. I am sure par­ty mem­bers will come to­geth­er and unite be­hind the new po­lit­i­cal leader.” 

Dr Maukesh Bas­deo cau­tions Beck­les

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Maukesh Bas­deo has is­sued cau­tion that PNM Po­lit­i­cal Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les may face sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­nal chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly if her One PNM slate does not se­cure all of the ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions in the in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dr Bas­deo not­ed that Beck­les’ lead­er­ship could be com­pli­cat­ed by a frag­ment­ed ex­ec­u­tive if can­di­dates from ri­val slates or in­de­pen­dents se­cure key posts.

“By sup­port­ing a slate, she is of the po­lit­i­cal opin­ion that if that slate wins, it al­lows her a sort of easy man­age­ment of the in­ter­nal af­fairs of the par­ty and the tran­si­tion of the par­ty go­ing in­to the 2030 gen­er­al elec­tion. A split ex­ec­u­tive may, how­ev­er, cre­ate more dif­fi­cul­ty as to the di­rec­tion of the par­ty.”

Dr Bas­deo em­pha­sised that a mix of ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers from dif­fer­ent slates, or a strong show­ing by in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates, could shift the in­ter­nal dy­nam­ics of the PNM.