Victor Roberts has called on members and supporters of the People\u2019s National Movement to stop attacking political leader Pennelope Beckles and instead focus their attention on challenging the UNC government.<\/p>\n
Roberts made the comments while addressing a discussion developing on Facebook surrounding an interaction between Beckles and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.<\/p>\n
He questioned why attention was being placed on whether Beckles and Persad-Bissessar shook or held hands, particularly when some of the criticism appeared to be coming from people associated with the PNM.<\/p>\n
Roberts argued that the continued criticism of Beckles was undermining the party\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy the constant attack on Penny?\u201d Roberts questioned, reminding supporters that Beckles is the elected political leader of the PNM.<\/p>\n
He noted that Beckles went unopposed during the party\u2019s internal election and criticised those now attacking her who did not challenge her for the leadership.<\/p>\n
Roberts also rejected suggestions being circulated that Beckles was secretly aligned with the UNC, saying PNM supporters were spending too much time attacking their own political leader.<\/p>\n
Instead, he urged party representatives and supporters to focus their attention on scrutinising the government and issues they believe require greater public attention.<\/p>\n
Roberts said the PNM should be concentrating on presenting itself as an effective opposition and preparing to challenge the UNC whenever another general election is called.<\/p>\n
His comments highlight continuing debate among PNM supporters over Beckles\u2019 leadership and the direction the party should take while in opposition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Victor Roberts tells PNM members stop undermining Penny and turn attention toward UNC government<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-trinidad-and-tobago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}