PNM sources deny claim party planned to censure Young

Ke­jan Haynes

Sources say no mo­tion was brought to re­strict for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment chair­man Stu­art Young from speak­ing with­out the bless­ing of par­ty lead­er­ship, de­spite ru­mours cir­cu­lat­ing be­fore the par­ty’s gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing on Wednes­day.

At the meet­ing, gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings raised what one source de­scribed as an un­ex­pect­ed idea. He sug­gest­ed that the de­ci­sion to call a gen­er­al elec­tion should not rest with one per­son, the prime min­is­ter, but should in­volve some con­sen­sus with­in the par­ty to en­sure con­stituen­cy groups are pre­pared for the cam­paign.

With the PNM in op­po­si­tion at both the cen­tral gov­ern­ment and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly lev­els, it will be years be­fore the par­ty is in any po­si­tion to call an elec­tion. Some sources who were present felt Cum­mings’ com­ment may have been aimed at for­mer prime min­is­ter Young, who at­tend­ed the meet­ing. The idea was not tabled as a mo­tion and was not put to a vote.

The par­ty con­tin­ues to strug­gle with in­ter­nal co­he­sion while in op­po­si­tion. Mem­bers re­main di­vid­ed over who is re­spon­si­ble for April’s elec­tion de­feat, with some still blam­ing Young, who they be­lieve called the elec­tion too ear­ly, just one day af­ter be­ing sworn in as Prime Min­is­ter.

At­ten­dance at yes­ter­day’s meet­ing was high­er than usu­al. Sources be­lieve this may have been linked to a Face­book post cir­cu­lat­ing in PNM groups which claimed the meet­ing would be used to cen­sure Young for speak­ing out of turn through press re­leas­es or press con­fer­ences.

The post on the page “Lu Nnauol” read:

“The mo­tion to be brought be­fore this meet­ing is to bar the MP of POSN­SAW, Stu­art Young, from post­ing/com­ment­ing/speak­ing on cur­rent is­sues via so­cial me­dia and else­where.

“Very con­fused I ask: why si­lence one MP (the one y’all have deemed as the com­peti­tor) and not all MPs? Where is the ‘One Love, One PNM’ vibes that y’all were tout­ing all over just re­cent­ly? Doesn’t he have every right, just as any oth­er MP, to speak on ALL is­sues that af­fect ALL cit­i­zens of TnT? What’s the RE­AL is­sue? The fact that peo­ple is lis­ten­ing? Or the thou­sands of re­ac­tions to his posts vs the ‘Strug­gle Bus’ for y’all to even come close to 250 re­ac­tions?”

Mul­ti­ple sources in­side and out­side the meet­ing, how­ev­er, say the con­tent of the post was en­tire­ly un­true.

In­side the room, one at­tendee said they saw Young raise his hand to speak. They were un­sure whether the chair­man did not see him or chose not to ac­knowl­edge him, but he did not get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress the coun­cil.

Sources say the gath­er­ing al­so heard calls for stronger sup­port for po­lit­i­cal leader and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who con­tin­ues to face grow­ing crit­i­cism on­line about her per­ceived lack of force­ful­ness against the gov­ern­ment.

Mem­bers were urged to present a unit­ed front amid gov­ern­ment taunts about the PNM hav­ing “mul­ti­ple po­lit­i­cal lead­ers”, re­fer­ring to Beck­les or for­mer prime min­is­ters Young and Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Beck­les re­port­ed­ly ad­dressed the meet­ing and thanked sup­port­ers for stand­ing be­hind her dur­ing the tran­si­tion.

In June, when Beck­les of­fi­cial­ly took over as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM, she ex­plained her style of lead­er­ship wasn’t go­ing to be loud. “Now is time to lis­ten,” she said. “The peo­ple said we wasn’t lis­ten­ing. I not run­ning down every car that pass and no­body eh rush­ing me to talk be­fore I ready to talk.”