KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

While her name is be­ing put for­ward as a pos­si­ble can­di­date, new­ly ap­point­ed Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis says she has no in­ter­est in a sen­a­to­r­i­al po­si­tion at this time.

Her com­ment comes as she and the PNM deputy leader are be­ing seen as a pos­si­ble re­place­ment for em­bat­tled Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, who has of­fered her res­ig­na­tion to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les in the wake of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) fi­as­co.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Cud­joe-Lewis said, “I want to make it pel­lu­cid­ly clear that I have ab­solute­ly no in­ter­est what­so­ev­er in serv­ing as a sen­a­tor at this time. My fo­cus is whol­ly and sole­ly on my new role as po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil, where I now ded­i­cate my time and ef­fort to work­ing in the trench­es with my peo­ple across To­ba­go, re­build­ing our par­ty, strength­en­ing our move­ment, and be­ing a voice for the voice­less and a force for good.

“At this crit­i­cal junc­ture, my pri­or­i­ty is to re­main ful­ly fo­cused on build­ing a cred­i­ble and ef­fec­tive op­po­si­tion in To­ba­go, and prepar­ing the PNM to stand in the gap for the peo­ple of To­ba­go once again. I al­so wish to ac­knowl­edge Ms Melanie Roberts-Radg­man, our lone To­ba­go Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor, who con­tin­ues to do a com­mend­able job rep­re­sent­ing the in­ter­ests of To­ba­go and To­bag­o­ni­ans in the na­tion­al Par­lia­ment. I ful­ly sup­port her ef­forts as she ad­vances the peo­ple’s busi­ness.”

As pres­sure con­tin­ues to mount on Op­po­si­tion Leader Beck­les to de­cide on whether she will for­mal­ly ac­cept John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion, some po­lit­i­cal voic­es be­lieve Cud­joe-Lewis or the par­ty’s deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu are the best op­tions.

PNM stal­wart Ash­ton Ford yes­ter­day said Beck­les needs to move swift­ly in choos­ing ei­ther one.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone, Ford said, “That is a de­ci­sion of the po­lit­i­cal leader but in my per­son­al view, I be­lieve it’s ei­ther San­jiv Bood­hu or Sham­fa Cud­joe. Be­cause Sham­fa Cud­joe just came in as po­lit­i­cal leader of To­ba­go, and she’s a fiery speak­er, she’s knowl­edge­able, she was a min­is­ter, and San­jiv has been do­ing a very good job as a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader. So, in my view, it could be any one of the two.”

Ford added that Cud­joe-Lewis will not just rep­re­sent To­ba­go but will bring a dif­fer­ent lev­el of rep­re­sen­ta­tion on na­tion­al is­sues in the Sen­ate.

Al­though he said he be­lieves John-Bates is a nice per­son, he agrees her res­ig­na­tion should be ac­cept­ed be­cause her ac­tions can’t be ig­nored.

He said, “She (Beck­les) should have act­ed swift­ly on that mat­ter, in­stead of al­low­ing it to mush­room in­to a big na­tion­al is­sue. She should have act­ed quick­ly. Ei­ther (John-Bates) step aside or she’s not go­ing any­where, that is my view.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said time is of the essence when it comes to con­firm­ing whether there’s an Op­po­si­tion sen­ate va­can­cy, and he thinks Bood­hu might not be a bad choice.

Mo­hammed said, “Drop the chop­per. Let her (John-Bates) learn and bring her back. They have five years, she has time to come back af­ter. You can’t tell me you want to pro­tect your own at the ex­pense of your own po­lit­i­cal le­git­i­ma­cy and cred­i­bil­i­ty. She (Beck­les) had to make a de­ci­sion, has to. And I’m not one of those that is pres­sur­ing her but time is of the essence and cred­i­bil­i­ty is at stake.”

He added, “It’s not hard. San­jiv Bood­hu, peo­ple re­spect him but he needs some train­ing, but he can learn. He’s an at­tor­ney. Hope­ful­ly, he doesn’t make the same mis­take.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to Bood­hu yes­ter­day, but he de­clined to com­ment on the is­sue.

But if not them, then who?

Of the 16 for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors, mi­nus for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and min­is­ter of le­gal af­fairs Regi­nald Ar­mour, who re­signed in March 2025 to be­come an ap­peal court judge in the East­ern Caribbean Supreme Court, Beck­les on­ly re­cruit­ed Dr Amery Browne for the Sen­ate.

She al­so ap­point­ed Faris Al-Rawi and Fos­ter Cum­mings, who both lost their seats in the low­er house, as sen­a­tors, thus leav­ing the 14 oth­er for­mer sen­a­tors out of the Par­lia­ment as of April 28, 2025.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to all 14 for­mer sen­a­tors to find out if they were in­ter­est­ed in re­turn­ing to the Up­per House, and while some did not want to com­ment on the record, not every­one was against the idea.

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Fish­eries, Avinash Singh, said he will al­ways be will­ing to serve the par­ty and pop­u­la­tion if ever asked.

Some of the for­mer sen­a­tors who served in the last PM ad­min­is­tra­tion in­clude for­mer min­is­ters Has­sell Bac­chus (Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion), Don­na Cox (So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices), Ran­dall Mitchell (Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts), Paula Gopee-Scoon (Trade and In­dus­try), Kaz­im Ho­sein (Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries), Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal (Of­fice of the AG and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs), Ro­han Sinanan (Works and Trans­port).