Gonzales: PNM exec to contact stalwart Ford on concerns

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les says he will per­son­al­ly reach out to par­ty stal­wart Ash­ton Ford, af­ter the vet­er­an mem­ber pub­licly raised con­cerns about the Op­po­si­tion’s in­ter­nal af­fairs, say­ing the is­sues present an op­por­tu­ni­ty for di­a­logue rather than di­vi­sion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, where mem­bers gath­ered for an in­ter­faith ser­vice, Gon­za­les de­clined to say whether Ford’s claims were true but ac­knowl­edged they re­flect­ed con­cerns that de­served to be heard.

Gon­za­les said, “Per­haps it presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the lead­er­ship of the par­ty to meet with Mr Ford to have those mat­ters ven­ti­lat­ed and per­haps re­solved. So, I don’t see those things in a re­al­ly neg­a­tive way quite frankly. I think it helps the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process. It helps lead­er­ship when mem­bers ex­press se­ri­ous con­cerns about mat­ters with­in the par­ty and they ought not to be dis­cour­aged.”

Ford is­sued a lengthy pub­lic state­ment out­lin­ing what he de­scribed as grow­ing dis­sat­is­fac­tion among mem­bers over the con­duct of the ex­ec­u­tive and gen­er­al coun­cil.

Among the many con­cerns raised by Ford were al­le­ga­tions that gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings has failed to present mem­bers’ cor­re­spon­dence to the gen­er­al coun­cil, ques­tions sur­round­ing the ap­point­ment of a com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints in­volv­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning and as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, claims of in­con­sis­tent dis­ci­pli­nary stan­dards in­volv­ing Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj, crit­i­cism over how for­mer sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates was treat­ed fol­low­ing the par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee con­tro­ver­sy, and what he de­scribed as an in­creas­ing­ly “au­thor­i­tar­i­an ap­proach” by the par­ty’s leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Cum­mings.

Rather than dis­miss­ing the con­cerns, Gon­za­les said they should be viewed as part of a healthy de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, al­though he ad­mit­ted he would have pre­ferred if those con­cerns were raised pri­vate­ly.

He added, “When per­sons take to so­cial me­dia, or rather de­cide to ven­ti­late those mat­ters in the pub­lic, then it per­haps sug­gests that we may not be do­ing enough to meet with them in pri­vate and it’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty for us as an ex­ec­u­tive and as a lead­er­ship to now cre­ate a plat­form to meet with some of those per­sons who may have con­cerns about ways in which the par­ty is be­ing man­aged.”

De­scrib­ing Ford as some­one who has al­ways act­ed in the par­ty’s best in­ter­ests, Gon­za­les said he in­tends to con­tact him per­son­al­ly.

“I don’t think any­one can sug­gest that he does not have the best in­ter­ests of the par­ty at heart. As a long-stand­ing, ex­pe­ri­enced mem­ber of the par­ty, I think we should meet with him and have open di­a­logue with re­spect to the con­cerns that he raised.”

Gon­za­les al­so sought to re­as­sure sup­port­ers amid spec­u­la­tion that the pub­lic crit­i­cism re­flect­ed deep­er di­vi­sions with­in the Op­po­si­tion.

Gon­za­les said, “I want to tell the sup­port­ers, do not be dis­mayed. Do not be wor­ried, or over­ly wor­ried, about the per­cep­tion of dis­uni­ty with­in the par­ty.”

He said PNM par­lia­men­tar­i­ans re­cent­ly held a re­treat to re­flect on the par­ty’s per­for­mance fol­low­ing last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat and dis­cuss the Op­po­si­tion’s fu­ture di­rec­tion.

Gon­za­les added, “It was a very pro­duc­tive ex­er­cise. As the chair­man of the par­ty, we emerged from the re­treat a far stronger team than when we en­tered in­to that re­treat.”

He added that the lead­er­ship re­mained com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing and pre­serv­ing the PNM.

Gon­za­les al­so dis­missed sug­ges­tions of any rift with for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Beck­les, con­firm­ing Young at­tend­ed the par­lia­men­tary re­treat and par­tic­i­pat­ed ful­ly.

He added, “I have a very good re­la­tion­ship with Mr Young. I could on­ly learn from Mr Young... My re­la­tion­ship with Mr Young, quite hon­est­ly, can­not be bet­ter than how it is right now.”

He al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions of com­pet­ing “Team Pen­ny” and “Team Stu­art” fac­tions, say­ing dif­fer­ences of opin­ion over lead­er­ship are com­mon in pol­i­tics but in­sist­ing his own fo­cus re­mains on re­build­ing the par­ty.