PNM votes today

After weeks of intense campaigning and the occasional bitter rivalry, the People’s National Movement (PNM) holds its long-awaited internal election today with a total of 11 positions on the party’s executive up for grabs.

Five other positions are being contested unopposed: Dr Keith Rowley (political leader); Camille Robinson-Regis (lady vice-chairman); Howard Chine Lee (treasurer); Jennifer Baptiste-Primus (labour relations officer); and Joycelyn Bodden (welfare officer).

Up to news time, last night, candidates were still on the field in a last ditch effort to woo voters.

Within recent weeks, there have been complaints among some candidates about discrepancies in the election process in relation to the availability of the voters’ list and other issues.

The family of Chinua Alleyne, independent candidate for the post of general secretary, also filed a report at the Woodbrook Police Station, after it was discovered that security cameras were pulled down from their Woodbrook property on Thursday night. The matter is being investigated.

Robinson-Regis, a member of the Red and Rowley slate, yesterday claimed her team had nothing to do with the incident.

She also distanced her slate from activities of that nature.

“I am sorry that has happened but it has nothing to do with us,” she told Sunday Newsday.

“Dr Rowley has been very magnanimous, so I don’t see why anyone would be even remotely interested in doing something like that.”

She added: “All of us, after this election, will continue to be members of the People’s National Movement because Dr Rowley has really opened up this party in a way that it has never been opened up before, especially by allowing the one man, one vote. It is totally different from what had happened previously.”

The Red and Rowley slate, comprising a mixture of veterans and relative newcomers, competes against a host of independent candidates as opposed to a team, as was the case four years ago when former government minister Pennelope Beckles-Robinson had put together a slate of candidates to contest positions on the executive.

Beckles-Robinson lost that election to Rowley in May 2014.

Rowley’s campaign has focussed largely on the need to maintain the status quo as the party prepares itself for three major elections: local government election, constitutionally due next year; general election in 2020 and the Tobago House of Assembly election in 2021.

Of the campaign, Robinson-Regis said: “I thought the campaign was an excellent one. We went to every part of Trinidad and Tobago. I thought the turnout of PNM members was excellent and the audiences were quite enthused by the Red and Rowley slate.”

Candidates opposing Rowley’s slate, in their campaigns, have spoken out about what they claim is the PNM’s failure to listen to the concerns of the party’s rank and file. They also claimed the party had veered from its moorings.

In a Facebook post, Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, who is challenging Colm Imbert for the post of chairman, thanked his supporters for “maintaining the honour and dignity of our great party.

“Our internal election serves to confirm that the party belongs to you, the membership and not to any narrow group of elites lurking in the background.”

Abdul-Hamid, a former government minister in the Patrick Manning administration, alluded to the occasional venomous tone of the campaign.

“There have been occasions where the words of only a few individuals have not been exemplary, but I am extremely proud and heartened that our campaign for chairman has not had a single blemish to compromise the highest standards that the membership expect and deserve. We are pleased to have exhibited the loyalty and discipline required of the premier political organisation in the region.”

Abdul-Hamid, in his post, boasted he had not said “one negative or unkind word against any of those who have engaged in personal attacks against me, and I do not propose to do so now

“Such bizarre and unusual behaviour only serves to hurt and bring the party into disrepute. I will take no part in such discourtesy.”

Meanwhile, Murchison Brown, chairman of the elections supervisory committee, told Sunday Newsday all systems were go for today’s election.

He said some 87, 000 registered PNM members, over age 18, were eligible to vote at some 41 polling stations throughout the country.

“All of the presiding officers have already collected their ballot boxes and the necessary stationery that goes with it and the ballots,” he said.

Voting begins at 8 am and runs until 6 pm.