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  • 6 months ago
The People's National Movement has set a date for its internal elections, Sunday, June 22nd, 2025.And with that announcement comes a major push from the party's General Council to realign its leadership structure, calling for the roles of Political Leader and Opposition Leader to be held by the same person. Cindy Raghubar-Teekersingh tells us more in this report.
Transcript
00:00Internal elections one week and a special convention the next.
00:04Public relations officer for the PNM, Faris al-Rawi, on Friday announced that following
00:09its special general council meeting, it was decided the party's internal elections for
00:15all 16 officers, including political leader, will take place in about five weeks' time.
00:21The taking of the ballot for the election of all of the officers will be executed at
00:27each of the 41 constituencies on Sunday, June 22nd, 2025.
00:33So to explain that, we do the ballot the weekend before the convention.
00:39The result of the ballot is then taken to the convention and at the convention the election
00:44is perfected.
00:45On Friday, the PNM General Council summoned a special convention to be held on Sunday, June
00:5129th for the purpose of election of all the officers, at which date the term of existence
00:56office holders within the party executive will come to an end.
01:01The party's elections are based on the one-man, one-vote system.
01:04Al-Rawi noted that a major focus of the General Council's discussions was the separation of
01:10roles between having had Dr. Keith Rowley as political leader, while Stuart Young served
01:16as Prime Minister, an arrangement he described as an experiment.
01:21We felt, and our discussions included, that the offices of political leader really ought
01:27to coincide with other offices, in this case specifically the leader of the opposition.
01:33The country, of course, saw the first-in-time experiment with a political leader being someone
01:40different from a prime minister, and I think it's fair to say that we were judged properly
01:45by the vote on April 20th as to what that experiment ended in.
01:52Most in council agreed.
01:53He added that the leader of the opposition should also hold the position of political leader.
01:59The anomaly is the fact that the leader of the opposition does not sit in leadership
02:03of the party, and that is, therefore, something that we're very concerned to put right as quickly
02:10as possible.
02:12The leader of the opposition declared that she would be seeking the post of political leader,
02:18and all of the speakers this evening certainly recommended and gave their support for that
02:24position.
02:26Cindy Raguba, Chika Singh, TV6 News.
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