Manning letter raises election integrity concerns ahead of PNM polls

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) lead­er­ship is ex­pect­ed to ex­am­ine in­ter­nal­ly a let­ter from San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning call­ing for ac­tion on con­cerns raised by mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy, in­clud­ing an al­leged con­flict of in­ter­est in­volv­ing a PNM ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber who al­so heads the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive.

The de­vel­op­ment comes as the PNM pre­pares for con­stituen­cy elec­tions from Ju­ly 1.

Fol­low­ing the is­sues out­lined in Man­ning’s let­ter, a cross-sec­tion of San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers ex­pressed “a pro­found lack of con­fi­dence in the cur­rent con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive’s ca­pac­i­ty to fair­ly, neu­tral­ly and trans­par­ent­ly ad­min­is­ter the con­stituen­cy’s up­com­ing in­ter­nal process­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly in in­stances where in­cum­bent of­fi­cers in­tend stand­ing for re-elec­tion.”

Man­ning’s let­ter was ad­dressed to the PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil last Thurs­day through Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings.

The cor­re­spon­dence de­tailed what it de­scribed as crit­i­cal con­cerns re­gard­ing “gov­er­nance, con­sti­tu­tion­al com­pli­ance and elec­toral in­tegri­ty” with­in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy.

It urged the po­lit­i­cal leader, gen­er­al sec­re­tary and Gen­er­al Coun­cil to thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate the al­leged “op­er­a­tional ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties” and take the nec­es­sary cor­rec­tive ac­tion to re­store the con­fi­dence of San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers.

The let­ter was sent to the Gen­er­al Coun­cil in care of Cum­mings. The coun­cil was in­formed of the cor­re­spon­dence from San Fer­nan­do East. How­ev­er, it was con­firmed that the let­ter was not read at the meet­ing, de­spite be­ing ad­dressed to the coun­cil, as it was not sub­mit­ted in the re­quired for­mat. Sources said such cor­re­spon­dence should have been ad­dressed di­rect­ly to the gen­er­al sec­re­tary rather than the coun­cil.

The de­vel­op­ment gen­er­at­ed in­ter­est among Gen­er­al Coun­cil at­ten­dees and on so­cial me­dia.

Man­ning did not re­spond to calls or text mes­sages seek­ing com­ment on the mat­ter.

The let­ter stat­ed that crit­i­cal gov­er­nance is­sues had been re­peat­ed­ly brought to Man­ning’s at­ten­tion by San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers dur­ing con­sul­ta­tions fol­low­ing the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

It called for im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion to the fol­low­ing mat­ters in or­der to pro­tect the par­ty:

Per­ceived con­flict of in­ter­est with­in the ex­ec­u­tive

The let­ter cit­ed wide­spread and grow­ing un­ease among mem­bers re­gard­ing an al­leged “struc­tur­al over­lap in gov­er­nance” aris­ing from the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy chair­man si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly serv­ing on the PNM’s Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive.

While this dual role may be per­mis­si­ble un­der the par­ty’s ex­ist­ing frame­work, the let­ter stat­ed it had cre­at­ed a strong per­cep­tion of a con­flict of in­ter­est.

“Mem­bers in­creas­ing­ly feel this arrange­ment com­pro­mis­es the nec­es­sary im­par­tial­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and ob­jec­tive ad­vo­ca­cy re­quired when lo­cal con­stituen­cy griev­ances are es­ca­lat­ed to the na­tion­al lev­el. The per­ceived deficit in in­de­pen­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tion has led to a no­tice­able de­cline in in­sti­tu­tion­al con­fi­dence,” the let­ter stat­ed.

Con­sti­tu­tion­al non-com­pli­ance re­gard­ing a by-elec­tion

Con­stituents al­so raised se­ri­ous pro­ce­dur­al con­cerns re­gard­ing a re­cent by-elec­tion held to fill an ex­ec­u­tive va­can­cy.

Mem­bers al­leged that the va­can­cy was not an­nounced in strict ac­cor­dance with the PNM Con­sti­tu­tion, which man­dates sev­en days’ no­tice to mem­bers be­fore an elec­tion is held.

The let­ter fur­ther al­leged that the sub­se­quent elec­tion or ap­point­ment of an in­di­vid­ual who was a non-at­tend­ing con­stituen­cy group rep­re­sen­ta­tive and an em­ploy­ee of a se­nior ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cial had am­pli­fied con­cerns re­gard­ing trans­paren­cy, fair­ness and nepo­tism.

“This de­vi­a­tion from es­tab­lished con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­ce­dures has se­vere­ly frac­tured in­ter­nal trust,” the let­ter stat­ed.

Gen­er­al de­cline in ex­ec­u­tive in­tegri­ty and morale

The cor­re­spon­dence al­so point­ed to what it de­scribed as an es­ca­lat­ing per­cep­tion among the con­stituen­cy base that sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers were fail­ing to act in a man­ner that in­spired con­fi­dence.

It claimed this had re­sult­ed in deep-seat­ed dis­trust and a de­cline in mem­ber en­gage­ment, vol­un­teer morale and par­ty co­he­sion at a time when PNM uni­ty was para­mount.

Con­cerns over elec­toral in­tegri­ty

The let­ter stat­ed that, as a re­sult of the is­sues raised, “a sig­nif­i­cant cross-sec­tion of San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers have ex­pressed a pro­found lack of con­fi­dence in the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive’s ca­pac­i­ty to fair­ly, neu­tral­ly and trans­par­ent­ly ad­min­is­ter our up­com­ing in­ter­nal process­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly in in­stances where in­cum­bent of­fi­cers in­tend stand­ing for re-elec­tion.”

It sug­gest­ed that the Gen­er­al Coun­cil im­ple­ment a num­ber of over­sight mea­sures be­fore the Ju­ly con­stituen­cy elec­tions, in­clud­ing:

An in­de­pen­dent au­dit and ver­i­fi­ca­tion of all reg­is­tered ac­tive San Fer­nan­do East par­ty groups;

The im­me­di­ate reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion and of­fi­cial recog­ni­tion of all par­ty groups meet­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ments of the PNM; and

In­de­pen­dent over­sight or ex­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tion from the na­tion­al lev­el to man­age con­stituen­cy elec­tions.

Yes­ter­day, PNM Po­lit­i­cal Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les did not re­spond to What­sApp queries seek­ing her views on the let­ter, whether it would be dis­cussed, or whether any of the rec­om­men­da­tions would be adopt­ed. Cum­mings al­so did not re­spond.

How­ev­er, PNM ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials said as­sur­ances had been giv­en that the mat­ter would be dis­cussed in­ter­nal­ly.

“The PNM will han­dle its busi­ness in­ter­nal­ly and the lead­er­ship will ap­pro­pri­ate­ly man­age mat­ters as re­quired,” one of­fi­cial said.

PNM As­sis­tant Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, who is al­so chair­man of the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment.

Alex­is has served as chair­man of the con­stituen­cy for more than 10 years and was a mem­ber of Beck­les’ “One PNM” slate dur­ing the par­ty’s 2025 in­ter­nal elec­tions.