While he has no in­ter­est in the in­ter­nal pol­i­tics un­fold­ing in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, Jack Warn­er be­lieves Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son is best suit­ed to lead the par­ty.

He sug­gest­ed Beck­les-Robin­son dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at his Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Tu­na­puna of­fice yes­ter­day.

“If I had my way, the on­ly per­son I could see – and I am on­ly say­ing this be­cause you ask the ques­tion though I am not in the par­ty – as be­ing wor­thy of lead­ing the PNM is Pen­ny Beck­les. She ver­sus Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar would be a thrilling fight and a fight of the cen­tu­ry,” Warn­er in­di­cat­ed.

Beck­les-Robin­son, who is cur­rent­ly the Ari­ma MP, chal­lenged Dr Kei­th Row­ley for the post of po­lit­i­cal leader in 2014 but lost. Row­ley won with 18,121 votes against her 1,315. At the time, the par­ty had 81,000 mem­bers.

Warn­er com­mend­ed Beck­les-Robin­son for “hav­ing the guts” to go up against Row­ley while “oth­ers were quar­relling in a cor­ner,” adding, “At the end of the day, Pen­ny Beck­les has served this coun­try in all dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ties and she is very mod­est, qui­et, not rude or dis­re­spect­ful”.

Ear­li­er this month, the PNM an­nounced that its in­ter­nal elec­tion, which was ini­tial­ly card­ed for No­vem­ber 17th, 2024, and 51st an­nu­al con­ven­tion had been can­celled.

Row­ley got ma­jor­i­ty sup­port of the gen­er­al coun­cil to rat­i­fy this de­ci­sion, with the ex­cep­tion of Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus, who vot­ed against it. A new date has not yet been an­nounced. Three po­si­tions, in­clud­ing the post of po­lit­i­cal leader, will not be con­test­ed un­til 2026.

Beck­les-Robin­son has not sig­nalled her in­tent to run for any po­si­tion.

Mean­while, Warn­er wants to know why Row­ley ap­point­ed Stu­art Young to act as Prime Min­is­ter so soon af­ter his deroga­to­ry com­ment in Par­lia­ment against Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, call­ing it a dis­re­spect­ful move.

Al­though Young has since apol­o­gised for his deroga­to­ry com­ment di­rect­ed at Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate on Oc­to­ber 10th, Warn­er is con­vinced that there should have been more pub­lic out­rage over the mat­ter be­cause he (Young) is “very dis­re­spect­ful, sex­ist and we can­not tol­er­ate any­body in Par­lia­ment like that.”

It is Young’s third time act­ing as PM, all this year.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert had act­ed as PM over the past nine years and up to ear­li­er this year in Row­ley’s ab­sence.

Some po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts be­lieve Young act­ing as PM means noth­ing, but Warn­er is con­vinced Row­ley is groom­ing him to be his suc­ces­sor and leader of the PNM.

How­ev­er, Warn­er said, “He has a lev­el of elit­ism that peo­ple don’t like, and I am telling you I am one of those peo­ple who do not like it.

“Im­bert could nev­er be prime min­is­ter of this coun­try be­cause peo­ple don’t like him pe­ri­od. He is dis­taste­ful. Peo­ple find him ob­jec­tion­able. He has been in Par­lia­ment for 31 years, like Row­ley has been, and it’s time for both to go.”

Row­ley is cur­rent­ly at the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) 2024 in Samoa.