Mohammed: PNM handling of Manning could hurt San Fernando election chances

GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed says the PNM lead­er­ship’s han­dling of the mat­ter in­volv­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning, in­clud­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against him, could jeop­ar­dise the par­ty’s chances of re­tain­ing con­trol of the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion at the next Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

The PNM cur­rent­ly holds five of the cor­po­ra­tion’s nine seats, with the UNC hold­ing the oth­er four. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions are due by mid-2027.

Mo­hammed was com­ment­ing on Mon­day fol­low­ing re­ports by two teams ap­point­ed by the PNM lead­er­ship to in­ves­ti­gate is­sues raised by Man­ning and San Fer­nan­do East (SFE) con­stituen­cy chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is against each oth­er.

The teams were head­ed by PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and Ernest Es­delle.

Alex­is and the SFE ex­ec­u­tive re­cent­ly re­signed. Man­ning was not giv­en the re­ports, but was pro­vid­ed with their find­ings, which weighed large­ly against him. He sub­se­quent­ly sub­mit­ted re­but­tals to the PNM re­ject­ing the find­ings.

PNM lead­er­ship of­fi­cials said at a re­cent me­dia con­fer­ence that some par­ty mem­bers want­ed Man­ning dis­ci­plined for speak­ing out on the mat­ter.

Amid re­ports that Man­ning could be re­ferred to the PNM’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Com­mit­tee fol­low­ing four to sev­en com­plaints, a num­ber cit­ed by PNM of­fi­cials on Mon­day, Mo­hammed ques­tioned the fo­cus on the MP’s con­duct.

“If sources said com­plaints came from mem­bers in sev­er­al con­stituen­cies and al­leged that Man­ning’s ac­tions ‘brought the par­ty in­to dis­re­pute and dam­aged its pub­lic im­age’, the PNM should be more con­cerned about where the is­sues arose in the SFE con­stituen­cy in the first place—which is the mat­ter at hand—and fix­ing these. Not oth­er con­stituen­cies,” he said.

“Al­so, such com­plaints can be eas­i­ly ma­nip­u­lat­ed by oth­er MPs and the par­ty hi­er­ar­chy; there­fore, this com­plaint, in my hum­ble opin­ion, is flawed.”

Mo­hammed ques­tioned whether the dis­pute should be treat­ed sole­ly as a Man­ning is­sue.

“Is this a Man­ning-alone is­sue? Or does this not call in­to ques­tion the work of the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive and all oth­er stake­hold­ers in­volved?” he asked.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, who in the PNM’s Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive has over­all re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ad­min­is­tra­tion? Where’s that of­fice hold­er—a na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber—in this en­tire sce­nario?”

He ques­tioned whether some­one at Bal­isi­er House was un­aware of what was hap­pen­ing, was “hid­ing” or had “gone un­de­tect­ed”.

“And the ques­tion is why?” he asked.

On the com­mit­tee’s warn­ing that the con­tin­u­ing Man­ning-Alex­is dis­pute was in­im­i­cal to the PNM’s con­tin­ued suc­cess in SFE, Mo­hammed ques­tioned whether the par­ty lead­er­ship should have al­lowed the mat­ter to es­ca­late.

“Is there an un­der­stand­ing that, in the in­ter­est of PNM mem­bers, SFE’s con­stituents and the build­ing of the PNM’s na­tion­al struc­ture, this is­sue should not have es­ca­lat­ed in­to an im­passe?” he asked.

“It can­not sim­ply be placed sole­ly in the hands of the MP that an im­passe en­sued.”

Mo­hammed said the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lay with the en­tire par­ty lead­er­ship to en­sure that the con­stituen­cy did not be­come iso­lat­ed.

“It was for the par­ty’s lead­er­ship—not on­ly its leader, but the en­tire lead­er­ship—to have dealt with is­sues aris­ing in a man­ner where­by SFE did not be­come iso­lat­ed, whilst al­so recog­nis­ing that SFE sur­vived a wave of UNC yel­low when PNM strong­holds La Brea and Point Fortin were swept away in a sea of yel­low,” he said.

On the find­ing that there was no func­tion­al work­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween Man­ning and Alex­is, Mo­hammed ques­tioned whether that re­la­tion­ship ex­ist­ed be­fore the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

“If this ex­ist­ed be­fore the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, then Man­ning can be cred­it­ed with win­ning the seat on his own mer­it, struc­tures and per­son­nel—not so?” he asked.

“But giv­en the 2023 LG re­sults and the 2025 GE re­sults in San Fer­nan­do, what will the PNM say are its chances of re­tain­ing San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion in LG elec­tions?”

Mo­hammed said the lead­er­ship’s han­dling of the mat­ter could have elec­toral con­se­quences for the PNM in San Fer­nan­do.

“The lead­er­ship’s han­dling of this en­tire mat­ter and the fact that Alex­is was ap­par­ent­ly al­lowed free rein to be a ‘run­away horse’ with the con­stituen­cy/ex­ec­u­tive, the slim chances of the cor­po­ra­tion be­ing re­tained by PNM and the de­cline of its stand­ing in San Fer­nan­do can very well fall on her shoul­ders, es­pe­cial­ly since her June 10 com­plaint against Man­ning was re­ceived by the lead­er­ship first, ini­ti­at­ing the mat­ter, be­fore Man­ning’s June 16 counter-com­plaint about her,” he said.

Mo­hammed al­so ques­tioned the find­ing that the SFE con­stituen­cy could be un­der threat be­cause of Man­ning’s “dwin­dling pop­u­lar­i­ty”.

“There are in­stances in the past where un­pop­u­lar MPs have re­turned as can­di­dates and suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend­ed their seats—Fitzger­ald Hinds, Colm Im­bert,” he said.

“What sci­en­tif­ic fact-find­ing did the com­mit­tee do to de­ter­mine the caus­es or pos­si­bil­i­ties of ‘dwin­dling pop­u­lar­i­ty’? Is it suf­fi­cient to as­sume this when com­pared to the whole Op­po­si­tion?”

Mo­hammed al­so pro­vid­ed a list­ing of PNM MPs and their mar­gins of vic­to­ry.

UNC moves in San Fer­nan­do East

FILE – The UNC’s Marabella West councillor, John Michael Alibocus, delivering school supplies to school children in his district.

The UNC’s 2025 San Fer­nan­do East gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­date John Michael Al­i­bo­cus was on the ground in the con­stituen­cy last week­end, dis­trib­ut­ing sta­tionery sup­plies to fam­i­lies ahead of the new school term.

Al­i­bo­cus, the UNC’s Mara­bel­la West coun­cil­lor, was pho­tographed last Sun­day with a Co­coyea fam­i­ly to whom he gave gift bags for stu­dents.

“I’m on the ground, in the heart of SFE, and watch­ing events there,” Al­i­bo­cus said.

In the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, Al­i­bo­cus lost to Man­ning by 673 votes.

Man­ning, mean­while, dis­missed Al­i­bo­cus’ prospects, say­ing:

“He’ll have a hard time even hold­ing Mara­bel­la West in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions since his burgess­es lost their CEPEP and URP jobs.”