Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

With calls for a spe­cial con­ven­tion of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to set­tle the is­sue of who will be­come its next po­lit­i­cal leader, the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion gives the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, which meets to­day, that au­thor­i­ty.

The con­sti­tu­tion al­so gives the Gen­er­al Coun­cil the au­thor­i­ty to ap­point an in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader once the po­si­tion is for­mal­ly va­cant.

To­day’s month­ly Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing be­gins at 4 pm at Bal­isi­er House and comes at a time of in­ter­nal rum­blings with­in the rul­ing par­ty over the man­ner in which Dr Kei­th Row­ley is han­dling his ex­it. It is be­lieved that to­day’s meet­ing will fo­cus main­ly on the con­cerns ex­pressed by some dis­sat­is­fied par­ty mem­bers who be­lieve a new po­lit­i­cal leader would be named with­out its in­put, sim­i­lar to what took place with the po­si­tion of Prime Min­is­ter.

For­mer PNM Trea­sur­er Mar­i­ano Browne be­lieves for the par­ty to be suc­cess­ful in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, it must have an of­fi­cial po­lit­i­cal leader and that can be ac­com­plished through a spe­cial con­ven­tion.

Past par­ty vice chair­man Robert Le Hunte al­so raised is­sues with the hand­ing over of pow­er and even de­scribed it as a ma­nip­u­la­tion of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process. Mean­while, se­nior PNM mem­ber Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus said that the mem­ber­ship must have its say on who will be the next leader.

Ac­cord­ing to the PNM’s con­sti­tu­tion, un­der Ar­ti­cle 17, a Spe­cial Con­ven­tion shall have the same rights and pow­ers as an An­nu­al Con­ven­tion.

The con­sti­tu­tion goes on to say that the An­nu­al Con­ven­tion, “shall be the supreme au­thor­i­ty of the Move­ment (PNM) and shall have the fol­low­ing rights, pow­er and du­ties: to con­sid­er, for­mu­late, de­clare or deal in any way with the prin­ci­ples, pol­i­cy and pro­gramme of the Move­ment, to con­sid­er, adopt, amend or deal in any way with the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Move­ment and to deal with any oth­er mat­ter or trans­act any oth­er busi­ness sub­mit­ted for its con­sid­er­a­tion by the Gen­er­al Coun­cil.”

Af­ter the PNM’s par­lia­men­tary cau­cus in To­ba­go, Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the lead­er­ship is­sue would be sort­ed out dur­ing the 2025 An­nu­al Con­ven­tion which he said would be held on Sep­tem­ber 28. This led some to be­lieve the par­ty was plan­ning to head in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tion with­out an of­fi­cial po­lit­i­cal leader or an out­go­ing one.

But the Gen­er­al Coun­cil has the au­thor­i­ty to move that up.

Un­der Ar­ti­cle 12 Sec­tion 6, “It shall be the du­ty of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil to sum­mon and to make arrange­ments for the An­nu­al Con­ven­tion and the Gen­er­al Coun­cil shall al­so have the right and the pow­er, in its dis­cre­tion, on a Res­o­lu­tion be­ing passed for that pur­pose to sum­mon a Spe­cial Con­ven­tion to con­sid­er and de­ter­mine spe­cif­ic mat­ters af­fect­ing the in­ter­est of the Move­ment.”

Sec­tion 9 al­so gives the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, “the pow­er to de­ter­mine if a va­can­cy ex­ists in any of­fice and to make an ap­point­ment and to fill such va­can­cy in the ab­sence of spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions, there­fore, in the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands this can on­ly trig­gered once the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal leader of­fi­cial­ly re­signs. Ac­cord­ing to the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion, the Gen­er­al Coun­cil is the gov­ern­ing body of the Move­ment and shall be re­spon­si­ble for its pol­i­cy, or­gan­i­sa­tion, ad­min­is­tra­tion and dis­ci­pline.

It com­pris­es of of­fi­cers of the PNM in­clud­ing its Chair­man, Vice-Chair­man, La­dy Vice-Chair­man, Po­lit­i­cal Leader, Po­lit­i­cal Leader To­ba­go Coun­cil, Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Lead­ers, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, As­sis­tant Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, Trea­sur­er, Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer, Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer, Labour Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer, Elec­tions Of­fi­cer, Field Of­fi­cer, Wel­fare Of­fi­cer, Youth Of­fi­cer, Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer and In­ter­na­tion­al Li­ai­son Of­fi­cer.

Some mem­bers of the con­stituen­cy groups and Youth League al­so make up the Gen­er­al Coun­cil. All MPs, May­ors, and Chairs of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Bod­ies shall be ex-of­fi­cio mem­bers. The elec­tion of a po­lit­i­cal leader will be done by the “one man, one vote” method.

How­ev­er, a can­di­date must at­tain 50 per cent or more of the votes. If that does not hap­pen, an in­stant run-off poll would be held with the two can­di­dates with the greater per­cent­age of votes.

PM dif­fer­ent to

po­lit­i­cal leader

This is vast­ly dif­fer­ent to the ap­point­ment of a prime min­is­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 76 (1) of the con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, “Where there is oc­ca­sion for the ap­point­ment of a prime min­is­ter, the Pres­i­dent shall ap­point as Prime Min­is­ter, (a) a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who is the Leader in that House of the par­ty which com­mands the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers of that House; or (b) where it ap­pears to him that that par­ty does not have an undis­put­ed leader in that House or that no par­ty com­mands the sup­port of such a ma­jor­i­ty, the mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who, in his judg­ment, is most like­ly to com­mand the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers of that House, and who is will­ing to ac­cept the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter.”

Dur­ing the PNM’s Par­lia­men­tary re­treat, a straw poll to de­cide Row­ley’s suc­ces­sor as Prime Min­is­ter was tak­en, with En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­ceiv­ing 11 votes amongst the Gov­ern­ment MPs as com­pared to nine for Plan­ning Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.