Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Me­dia per­son­al­i­ty Hans des Vi­gnes has emerged as the front-run­ner in the race for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

At a con­stituen­cy meet­ing held yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia was told that des Vi­gnes re­ceived sup­port from 12 par­ty groups for his nom­i­na­tion, while ex­ec­u­tive la­dy vice chair­man Yokym­ma Bethelmy re­ceived two.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne with­drew his name from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) nom­i­na­tion process for Diego Mar­tin West late on Fri­day. It was re­vealed that he did not re­ceive any nom­i­na­tions. As a re­sult, he de­cid­ed to re­move him­self from con­sid­er­a­tion the day be­fore the meet­ing took place.

There are 23 par­ty groups in to­tal, plus the Women’s League and the Youth League. The dead­line for nom­i­na­tions is Jan­u­ary 27.

Des Vi­gnes, 39, a busi­ness­man, has been a me­dia per­son­al­i­ty as well as a di­rec­tor of IGOVTT. He has a mas­ter’s de­gree in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion—lead­er­ship, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion.

On Jan­u­ary 3, Dr Row­ley con­firmed that he in­tend­ed to bow out of pol­i­tics af­ter 45 years, and as such, the par­ty would have to seek a new can­di­date for Diego Mar­tin West.

Dr Row­ley has been MP for Diego Mar­tin West for the past 33 years.

On Jan­u­ary 6 when he an­nounced En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young as his suc­ces­sor at a me­dia brief­ing, Row­ley was asked about his re­place­ment.

Row­ley said, “I don’t have any­body in mind; I wouldn’t be mak­ing any rec­om­men­da­tion, but I’m sure the con­stituen­cy is busy now look­ing for some­one wor­thy of rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple of Diego Mar­tin West.”

Browne was con­sid­ered the front-run­ner to re­place Row­ley in the seat. Browne’s with­draw­al means there are now five con­firmed peo­ple who con­sent­ed to be nom­i­nat­ed, in­clud­ing des Vi­gnes, Bethelmy, ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary Cur­tis Tou­s­saint, ex­ec­u­tive field of­fi­cer Le­si­di Fe­lix, and An­na Suleiman.

Pres­sure for par­ty groups?

The sur­prise an­nounce­ment by Browne on Fri­day has spurred claims that par­ty group ex­ec­u­tives have been strong-armed in­to se­lect­ing des Vi­gnes. Close par­ty sources told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that ex­ec­u­tives from at least three par­ty groups were al­leged­ly pres­sured in­to giv­ing des Vi­gnes the nod over Browne. Sources said that Browne’s de­ci­sion to with­draw his nom­i­na­tion al­leged­ly stemmed from mount­ing pres­sure be­ing placed on par­ty group mem­bers; they fur­ther claimed that par­ty group mem­bers were ex­press­ing sad­ness over the de­vel­op­ment af­ter Browne ap­peared to have had the back­ing with­in the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy.

On Jan­u­ary 10, Browne penned a let­ter to the par­ty’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Fos­ter Cum­mings, in which he in­di­cat­ed his con­sent to be nom­i­nat­ed for the Diego Mar­tin West seat. Browne’s let­ter was copied to the chair­man of the Diego Mar­tin West Con­stituen­cy, Jack­ie Lazarus, and the Diego Mar­tin West par­ty groups. Browne stat­ed that he would ful­fil his du­ties “with in­tegri­ty, fair­ness, diplo­ma­cy, re­spect, and re­lent­less hard work and ded­i­ca­tion,” which are at­trib­ut­es that would make the con­stituents proud.

Sev­en days lat­er, with­out any sup­port for his nom­i­na­tion from any of the par­ty groups, he with­drew his con­sent let­ter. On De­cem­ber 8, the Sun­day Guardian ex­clu­sive­ly re­vealed that Dr Row­ley would not be screened for the Diego Mar­tin West seat and that Browne had his bless­ing as a re­place­ment for that seat.

Af­ter the sto­ry was pub­lished, Dr Row­ley did not com­ment or ad­dress it. Browne, on the oth­er hand, dis­missed it on so­cial me­dia with the fol­low­ing post: “I wish to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly state that I have not been ap­proached by the con­stituen­cy of Diego Mar­tin West with re­spect to nom­i­na­tion as an elec­toral can­di­date, and I have had no such con­ver­sa­tions or in­ten­tions or “bless­ings”.

Any­thing pub­lished to sug­gest oth­er­wise is at best spec­u­la­tion or at worst the re­sult of pure and de­lib­er­ate MIS­CHIEF.” How­ev­er, the sto­ry nev­er said or sug­gest­ed that he was ap­proached by the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy.

Last Wednes­day he told Guardian Me­dia, “I am acute­ly aware that at the con­stituen­cy lev­el, there are big shoes to fill, as Diego Mar­tin West has been rep­re­sent­ed by a re­silient and ac­com­plished po­lit­i­cal gi­ant for many years. The process be­gins with an in­di­ca­tion of a will­ing­ness to faith­ful­ly serve, and I have so in­di­cat­ed.”

Browne did not re­spond to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Con­stituen­cy chair­man sur­prised by with­draw­al

But Lazarus, the PNM Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy chair­man, yes­ter­day dis­missed claims that par­ty group mem­bers were be­ing giv­en a par­tic­u­lar di­rec­tive in their se­lec­tion of the prospec­tive can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy.

“I would say that the process of be­ing se­lect­ed is one that in­volves lob­by­ing, and there will al­ways be peo­ple who will sup­port dif­fer­ent can­di­dates, but the PNM is a very re­silient and a very sol­id par­ty, and we will come out of this even stronger.” I re­mem­ber telling some­one when you are go­ing through growth spurts, you some­times go through pain, and that is part of the process of grow­ing.”

Lazarus ex­plained that re­cent in­ter­nal shake-ups with­in the par­ty were in­dica­tive of a turn­ing of the tide in the his­to­ry of pol­i­tics.

“I think we are turn­ing a cor­ner where the PNM mem­ber­ship is re­quir­ing a dif­fer­ent type of lead­er­ship, and I think peo­ple are the ones who are mak­ing that hap­pen, and it’s not on­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go; it is every­where be­cause long ago in­for­ma­tion was con­fined to tra­di­tion­al me­dia. Now there are so many chan­nels, and younger per­sons are mak­ing de­ci­sions based on their needs,” she told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Lazarus la­belled the on­go­ing screen­ing process as “healthy”.

The PNM Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy chair­man al­so ex­pressed her be­wil­der­ment over Dr Browne’s with­draw­al from the race.

“Yes, it did sur­prise me; I was not ex­pect­ing that. The race is not any­where near over, but he prob­a­bly has his rea­sons, and that has not been shared with me.” Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact Cum­mings for a re­sponse to the lat­est de­vel­op­ment, but one was not pro­vid­ed up to late yes­ter­day. Row­ley al­so did not re­spond.

Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath: Break­ing of bridge from Man­ning PNM and Row­ley PNM

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath weighed the pos­si­ble out­comes at the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion polls if des Vi­gnes emerges as the PNM’s pick for the Diego Mar­tin West seat, which has been held by Row­ley since 1991.

“If the par­ty se­lects Mr des Vi­gnes and is re­al­ly try­ing to em­brace the young peo­ple in the part, that, I think, is a good thing for the par­ty. As to whether it is a good thing and could bridge both gaps, that is the young as well as the old, I don’t think it may very well do that.”

Dr Ra­goonath fur­ther in­ter­pret­ed Dr Browne’s de­ci­sion to bow out of the race for the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy as a form of chang­ing of the guard with­in the par­ty.

“It sug­gests that there is a break­ing of the bridge be­tween the Man­ning PNM and the Dr Row­ley PNM. Dr Browne was one who came from the Man­ning PNM, and if he is not be­ing em­braced ful­ly by the cur­rent regime, then it is sim­ply a mat­ter of fur­ther­ing the di­vi­sions be­tween the old PNM and the new PNM.”

A re­turn of Leonce?

Mean­while, there were claims yes­ter­day from with­in the PNM that Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce had thrown his hat back in­to the ring as a can­di­date for the up­com­ing elec­tion. Guardian Me­dia reached out to the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive for feed­back. The chair­man said, “I am not aware of that as of now. As of now, I am not aware.”

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia has been re­li­ably in­formed that the con­stituen­cy still wants Leonce to re­turn and still has close to unan­i­mous sup­port among par­ty groups.

Last De­cem­ber, Leonce, who was born and grew up in Laven­tille East, did not show up at the PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters for the screen­ing process for gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees.

Leonce was un­op­posed for the can­di­da­cy and was sup­port­ed strong­ly by all par­ty groups and ex­ec­u­tives alike.

He lat­er stat­ed that he loves his con­stituents but some very se­ri­ous per­son­al is­sues that af­fect his fam­i­ly and him­self were brought to his at­ten­tion and he had no choice but to pull out of the race.