Young preparing for PNM leadership challenge……

One gone, one more to go for Penny

The plan is work­ing fine for Stu­art Young to re­turn as political leader of the People’s Nation­al Movement (PNM).

Deep-pocket finan­ciers and strategists who are hoping for Young to once more be­come PNM boss see the party’s humiliating loss in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) polls as a critical stepping stone.
They now expect that Penelope Beckles-Robinson will lead the PNM into defeat in the local government polls, due next year.
Two successive elec­toral losses will render Ms. Beckles-Robinson a political lameduck.
Sunshine Today had previously reported that Young’s inner circle was banking on Ms. Beckles-Robinson los­ing the THA and LG elections.
A double defeat, ac­cording to Young’s in­siders, would power the way for a challenge to Ms. Beckles-Robin­son’s stuttering leader­ship.
The Opposition party is due to hold leader­ship election in 2028, two years before the next general election.
A victory for Young in the party’s internal poll will give him mere months to mobilise sup­port to challenge the United National Con­gress (UNC) for office.
Young’s loyalists see the whitewashing of PNM in the Tobago polls as the first litmus test of Ms. Beckles-Robinson’s tortured stewardship.
They anticipate her becoming a short-stay leader.
She was named Op­position Leader and elected PNM boss after the PNM crashed in the April 28 general elec­tion.
Former Prime Min­ister and PNM leader Dr. Keith Rowley had angled for Young to be­come Leader of the Op­position.
Young, who is 50 and has vaulting political ambitions, is backed by wealthy and influential urban entrepreneurs.
He also has the active support of a longstand­ing PNM tactician, whose businesses re­ceived multi-million-dollar contracts under the PNM administra­tion.
Young has been keep­ing politically busy, is­suing statements and granting media inter­views without defer­ence to Ms. Beckles-Robinson’s leadership.
He is also functional in his Port of Spain North-St. Anns West constituency, where he is regularly photo­graphed with working class supporters.
Informed sources said Young’s political handlers have advised him to stay in the pub­lic’s eye and to regular­ly comment on national issues, including the all-important energy sector.
His team operatives are confident that Ms. Beckles-Robinson will continue to falter, lead­ing to greater disfavour with PNM supporters.
The leader’s hectic campaigning did not help the party in the THA election, and re­sulted in only the sec­ond time there was a whitewash in a poll in the sister isle.
Ms. Beckles-Robin­son is seen as having a wooden personality, with a laidback politi­cal style, lacking dyna­mism and charisma.
The defeat in the gen­eral and THA elections have led to commentary that the PNM is facing an existential crisis.
Rowley, whose re­cent public utterances have been met with rid­icule and criticism, re­mains a diehard Young trooper.
But he is unlikely to become a frontliner of behalf of the aspirant leader.
A proposed pre-elec­tion “Conversation with Tobago” by Rowley was scrapped as a result of a paltry turnout.
The THA result is also a powerful rebuff against Rowley, who was born on the island and boasts of his roots.
-KEN ALI