PNM probe finds Manning’s hold on San Fernando East seat shaky

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The PNM’s hold on San Fer­nan­do East, un­bro­ken since the con­stituen­cy was cre­at­ed in 1967, is be­ing deemed un­der threat af­ter an in­ter­nal com­mit­tee found MP Bri­an Man­ning’s pop­u­lar­i­ty “may be dwin­dling” amid an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to his bit­ter rup­ture with the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive.

The find­ing is con­tained in a con­fi­den­tial Ju­ly 31 re­port by a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Com­mit­tee of In­quiry in­to the af­fairs of the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia.

The com­mit­tee warned that the con­tin­u­ing im­passe be­tween Man­ning and then con­stituen­cy chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, along with mem­bers of the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive, served nei­ther side and was “in­im­i­cal to the con­tin­ued suc­cess of the PNM in San Fer­nan­do East.”

Man­ning re­tained the con­stituen­cy in the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion fol­low­ing a re­count re­quest­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), de­feat­ing can­di­date John Michael Al­i­bo­cus by 673 votes. In com­par­i­son, he won the seat by 5,173 votes in the 2020 elec­tion.

The com­mit­tee specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­enced that de­cline in sup­port in con­clud­ing that Man­ning’s pop­u­lar­i­ty “may be dwin­dling.”

The PNM has nev­er lost the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, which was rep­re­sent­ed for decades by Man­ning’s fa­ther, for­mer prime min­is­ter and PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Patrick Man­ning.

No­tably, the re­port was com­plet­ed be­fore Alex­is and the rest of the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive re­signed. Its find­ings there­fore re­flect con­di­tions that ex­ist­ed while the ex­ec­u­tive re­mained in of­fice.

The in­quiry was trig­gered by com­plaints sub­mit­ted sep­a­rate­ly by Man­ning and Alex­is re­gard­ing the op­er­a­tions of the con­stituen­cy.

The com­mit­tee was chaired by Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and in­clud­ed Dr Mar­i­lyn Lewis-To­bias, Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne, Na­tion­al Youth League chair­man Patrick Phillip and Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader San­jiv Bood­hu.

Mem­bers re­viewed cor­re­spon­dence and writ­ten sub­mis­sions from both sides and con­duct­ed in­ter­views with Man­ning, Alex­is and wit­ness­es iden­ti­fied by them.

Its find­ings un­der­scored the ex­tent of the di­vi­sion.

The com­mit­tee found there was “no func­tion­al and/or work­ing re­la­tion­ship” be­tween Man­ning and Alex­is and sev­er­al mem­bers of the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive, in­clud­ing some San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lors.

An­oth­er key find­ing cen­tred on Man­ning’s ap­point­ment of Tina Gron­lund-Nunez as Con­stituen­cy Co­or­di­na­tor.

The com­mit­tee de­ter­mined that Man­ning had ap­point­ed Gron­lund-Nunez to the po­si­tion. How­ev­er, it said it re­mained un­clear whether he had com­mu­ni­cat­ed that ap­point­ment to her, as she re­port­ed­ly stat­ed she was un­aware of it.

More sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the com­mit­tee con­clud­ed that the ap­point­ment was “in­con­sis­tent with the Par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion­al struc­ture and the prop­er func­tion­ing of the Con­stituen­cy.”

De­spite the break­down in re­la­tions, the com­mit­tee stopped short of de­clar­ing the re­la­tion­ship ir­repara­ble. It found that both sides would need to com­pro­mise to find com­mon ground.

The re­port not­ed that Alex­is ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in me­di­a­tion, while Man­ning in­di­cat­ed no in­ter­est in that op­tion.

How­ev­er, not all of the find­ings were crit­i­cal of Man­ning.

The com­mit­tee al­so con­clud­ed that the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive had act­ed “ul­tra vires the Par­ty Con­sti­tu­tion” by fail­ing to pro­vide the re­quired sev­en days’ pub­lic no­tice be­fore con­duct­ing an elec­tion for an ex­ec­u­tive of­fice.

Mean­while, Guardian Me­dia has learned that Man­ning is fac­ing a sep­a­rate in­ter­nal par­ty process af­ter the PNM re­ceived sev­en com­plaints from or­di­nary par­ty mem­bers con­cern­ing his con­duct.

Sources said the com­plaints came from mem­bers in sev­er­al con­stituen­cies and al­leged that Man­ning’s ac­tions had brought the par­ty in­to dis­re­pute and dam­aged its pub­lic im­age.

The PNM’s Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive has re­ferred all sev­en com­plaints to the par­ty’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Com­mit­tee for con­sid­er­a­tion.

While the mat­ter is now be­fore the com­mit­tee, no time­line has been set for com­ple­tion of the process.

The re­fer­ral is sep­a­rate from the Ju­ly 31 Com­mit­tee of In­quiry and its find­ings con­cern­ing the San Fer­nan­do East dis­pute.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that some com­plaints re­late to Man­ning’s han­dling of the con­tro­ver­sy and his pub­lic com­men­tary on the mat­ter.

The par­ty had pre­vi­ous­ly urged Man­ning to cease dis­cussing the dis­pute pub­licly and in­stead utilise in­ter­nal par­ty mech­a­nisms to ad­dress his con­cerns.

The In­ves­ti­ga­tions Com­mit­tee will now ex­am­ine the com­plaints un­der the PNM’s dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures.

A sec­ond in­ter­nal PNM in­ves­ti­ga­tion has de­liv­ered find­ings on one of the cen­tral is­sues at the heart of the con­tro­ver­sy: the num­ber and sta­tus of Par­ty Groups in San Fer­nan­do East.

A Ver­i­fi­ca­tion Com­mit­tee re­port dat­ed Au­gust 28, al­so ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, ex­am­ined Par­ty Groups op­er­at­ing be­tween Ju­ly 1, 2024, and May 31, 2026.

Its key find­ing was that 30 Par­ty Groups were ver­i­fied in San Fer­nan­do East, in ad­di­tion to the Women’s League and Youth League. All 30 were deemed fi­nan­cial for the pur­pos­es of the ex­er­cise.

The ver­i­fi­ca­tion was sig­nif­i­cant be­cause com­pet­ing Par­ty Group lists formed a ma­jor com­po­nent of the dis­pute be­tween Man­ning and the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive.

Three ad­di­tion­al groups, iden­ti­fied as PG12, PG16 and PG35, ap­peared on a list sub­mit­ted by Man­ning but could not be ver­i­fied as ex­ist­ing Par­ty Groups.

The com­mit­tee found that doc­u­men­ta­tion for PG12 lacked con­tact in­for­ma­tion, while no chair­per­son or sec­re­tary was list­ed for PG16.

For PG35, con­tact in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed for the chair­per­son proved in­cor­rect. Al­though the sec­re­tary in­di­cat­ed that in­for­ma­tion would be sub­mit­ted, no ma­te­r­i­al had been re­ceived by the re­port­ing date.

The com­mit­tee al­so not­ed that Man­ning did not con­firm know­ing the of­fi­cials of any of the three groups. It there­fore found in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to ver­i­fy their ex­is­tence, leav­ing the fi­nal num­ber of Par­ty Groups at 30.

The com­mit­tee al­so con­sid­ered Man­ning’s claim that sev­en prospec­tive Par­ty Groups had sought to reg­is­ter but were frus­trat­ed by the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive.

Man­ning al­leged that in­di­vid­u­als as­so­ci­at­ed with the groups had in­formed the ex­ec­u­tive of their in­ten­tions and that no ac­tion was tak­en. The ex­ec­u­tive de­nied the al­le­ga­tion.

How­ev­er, the com­mit­tee found the claim was not sub­stan­ti­at­ed by the ev­i­dence be­fore it.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, no doc­u­men­ta­tion was pro­duced show­ing that the groups had com­plet­ed the par­ty’s ad­min­is­tra­tive re­quire­ments, paid ini­tial mem­ber­ship dues or for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted re­quests for recog­ni­tion.

An­oth­er is­sue in­volved PG42, which ap­peared in ma­te­r­i­al as­so­ci­at­ed with the PNM’s 2025 can­di­date nom­i­na­tion process but was ab­sent from both Man­ning’s list and the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive’s records.

The com­mit­tee treat­ed the mat­ter as an ad­min­is­tra­tive dis­crep­an­cy and made no find­ing re­gard­ing the group’s sta­tus.

It al­so ex­am­ined cor­re­spon­dence at­trib­uted to Gre­go­ry Lange re­gard­ing as­sis­tance in form­ing two Par­ty Groups. How­ev­er, the com­mit­tee was un­able to in­de­pen­dent­ly au­then­ti­cate the cor­re­spon­dence or ver­i­fy the claims con­tained with­in it.

The re­port stat­ed that, de­spite fur­ther in­quiries, con­tact in­for­ma­tion for Lange could not be ob­tained and com­mit­tee mem­bers were un­able to in­ter­view him.

The ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise al­so ex­posed weak­ness­es in the PNM’s record-keep­ing sys­tems.

Eleven of the 30 ver­i­fied Par­ty Groups had elec­tion re­turns that failed to iden­ti­fy a polling di­vi­sion, while records re­vealed in­stances of over­lap­ping polling di­vi­sion as­sign­ments.

The com­mit­tee al­so iden­ti­fied fi­nan­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion gaps. Al­though all 30 groups were record­ed as fi­nan­cial, pa­per re­ceipts could not be lo­cat­ed for PG6, PG18 and PG21.

Mem­bers were ad­vised that the pay­ments were like­ly made through the bank. How­ev­er, the com­mit­tee stressed that those trans­ac­tions had not been in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied by the date of the re­port.

De­spite these de­fi­cien­cies, the groups were ac­cept­ed as le­git­i­mate and fi­nan­cial­ly sound based on elec­tion re­turns and oth­er sup­port­ing in­for­ma­tion.

The com­mit­tee ul­ti­mate­ly found “ma­te­r­i­al record-keep­ing and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion de­fi­cien­cies” with­in the par­ty’s records. How­ev­er, it con­clud­ed that the short­com­ings did not pro­vide suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to at­tribute de­lib­er­ate mis­con­duct to any iden­ti­fied in­di­vid­ual.

Man­ning re­spond­ed to ques­tions about the re­port by send­ing Guardian Me­dia a let­ter he sent to Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings. He ques­tioned why his nar­row 2025 vic­to­ry is be­ing scru­ti­nised while se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials who per­formed worse at the polls have es­caped sim­i­lar ex­am­i­na­tion.

“Con­sid­er the same elec­tion the Com­mit­tee has cho­sen to weigh. The Po­lit­i­cal Leader re­tained a safe seat by a mar­gin nar­row­er to mine,” Man­ning said.

He al­so point­ed to the PNM’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, whom he said lost a mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy pre­vi­ous­ly won by al­most 4,000 votes.

Man­ning coun­tered that San Fer­nan­do East emerged as the PNM’s “on­ly seat” from To­co to Ica­cos af­ter its 2025 de­feat.

“Whom would the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive like to thank for San Fer­nan­do East?” he asked.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to PNM Chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les, how­ev­er, he de­clined to dis­cuss the re­ports.

Gon­za­les said, “These are in­ter­nal par­ty mat­ters that are be­ing man­aged by the Gen­er­al Coun­cil and Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive of the Par­ty. The tra­di­tion of the par­ty is that we pre­fer these mat­ters to be han­dled in­ter­nal­ly by the par­ty’s or­gans and of­fi­cers. I do hope that we con­tin­ue to fol­low these tra­di­tions in the best in­ter­est of the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship.”