Shal­iza Has­sanali and Jensen La Vende

Fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gen­er­al Coun­cil, the Sun­day Guardian sought the views of gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and MPs re­gard­ing its out­come. This is what they had to say.

Faris Al-Rawi—Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter: To­day, it’s very im­por­tant be­cause the gen­er­al coun­cil had its op­por­tu­ni­ty in our full democ­ra­cy to say what it wished. I’m very pleased to say that the gen­er­al coun­cil had no mo­tions con­demn­ing or call­ing for any­thing. There was full sup­port. And in those cir­cum­stances, I am prop­er­ly sat­is­fied that the pro­posed nom­i­na­tion of Mr Young who I sup­port per­son­al­ly in­to the po­si­tion of Prime Min­is­ter is well and good.

I think democ­ra­cy was achieved to­day.

What does the out­come mean for the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship? We un­der­stand that the gen­er­al coun­cil sup­ports Stu­art Young as Prime Min­is­ter.

No mo­tion came for a po­lit­i­cal leader to be ap­point­ed oth­er than Dr Row­ley. So, what we have is a prece­dent now that is quite in­ter­est­ing be­cause, in my re­search, I could not come across a sit­u­a­tion where one re­signs as Prime Min­is­ter and holds on to po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship. It’s cer­tain­ly ground break­ing.

To­day, in essence, we’re do­ing some­thing that no­body thought was pos­si­ble. And what is that? The glass ceil­ing that sup­pos­ed­ly ex­ist­ed in the PNM as to race is not an is­sue in the PNM so en­dorsed by our gen­er­al coun­cil of 41 con­stituen­cies and their nom­i­nees present.

You have to un­der­stand how land­mark that is. That is land­mark be­cause no oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty is in that sit­u­a­tion. It was very re­spect­ful. It was mea­sured. Whilst I have a per­son­al view that Min­is­ter Young is ap­pro­pri­ate­ly qual­i­fied there are oth­ers who are qual­i­fied to be Prime Min­is­ter, but in the room of 21 of us, Min­is­ter Young is our choice. We have bro­ken a huge glass ceil­ing in this coun­try that peo­ple said the PNM could nev­er do. I’m warmed and thrilled about that.

Stu­art Young: It is not how I feel yuh know, it’s about how Trinidad and To­ba­go is about to feel with team PNM. I have the sup­port. Watch and see what team PNM is about to de­liv­er.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds: Great is this pow­er­ful PNM. And we will con­quer all of our po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies every time. Truth and prin­ci­ple is what we stand on.”

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land. The out­come is that there is no is­sue in the PNM. We are unit­ed be­hind one choice, the ho­n­ourable Stu­art Young. That was the de­ci­sion that oc­curred in To­ba­go and it was con­firmed. The PNM has con­duct­ed its busi­ness, in the man­ner the PNM al­ways con­ducts its busi­ness with in­tegri­ty and pre­ci­sion.”

Camille Robin­son-Reg­is—Hous­ing Min­is­ter and PNM’s La­dy Vice Chair­man: I am not say­ing any­thing.

Jen­nifer-Bap­tiste-Primus—PNM’s labour re­la­tions of­fi­cer: We in­tend to work to­geth­er in or­der to present to Trinidad and To­ba­go good gov­er­nance. At this point in time all mem­bers of Par­lia­ment have signed the let­ter sup­port­ing the Ho­n­ourable Stu­art Young and the PNM will con­tin­ue to grow from strength to strength. Sor­ry Kam­la (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) we still got this one. I am some­one who has passed through the trade union move­ment, the trade union move­ment is an are­na dom­i­nat­ed by men and I have sur­vived over 30 years in that are­na. So I don’t feel a sense of de­feat at all. I know once we are en­gaged in dis­cus­sions.