Facebook Post
By: Dane S G Wilson
You have spent a great deal of time answering a question I did not ask.
I asked a very simple question
How did the PNM get here?
I know the history of the PNM. I know Dr. Eric Williams could be brutal. I know the PNM has always had picong, polemic and hard political argument.
But there is a difference between political combat and political cruelty.
There is a difference between attacking someone's politics and attacking their personal life.
There is a difference between challenging someone's ideas and mocking their health.
And there is a difference between picong and obscene, vulgar abuse.
You say -> character is not gossip. It is data <-
If you cannot answer the substance of someone's argument and instead go searching through their personal life for ammunition you have not strengthened your argument.
You have demonstrated that you are intellectually barren of a substantive response.
When the facts cannot be answered the person becomes the target.
The private life becomes ammunition.
The insult becomes the argument.
That is not political analysis.
That is intellectual bankruptcy dressed up as -> data <-
And this constant attempt to turn legitimate criticism of Mrs Penelope Beckles-Robinson into misogyny needs to stop.
Yes she is the first woman to lead the PNM.
That is historic.
But it does not make her immune from criticism.
Indira Gandhi was criticised.
Eugenia Charles was criticised.
Margaret Thatcher was criticised.
Mia Mottley is criticised.
Kemi Badenoch is criticised.
They were political leaders and therefore they were accountable.
Being a woman in political leadership is not a handicap, and it should never mean being placed beyond political accountability.
You can question Mrs Penelope Beckles-Robinson leadership.
You can question the process by which she became Opposition Leader, including the fact that six PNM MPs were not part of that process.
You can question her handling of the Mayor Balliram Maharaj matter.
You can question her silence on the General Council election where Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly was elected party Chairman under dubious circumstances
You can say you believe she is weak.
Those are political arguments.
Answer them.
Defend her decisions. Defend her record. Show where her critics are wrong.
But don't hide behind misogyny and don't defend her by abusing PNM members who disagree with her.
That does not strengthen her leadership.
It weakens it.
And then there is your unkind attacks about Darian Marcel health.
Darian is a cancer survivor.
Any long standing PNM member should know that.
So when you mock or ridicule the physical consequences of a cancer survivor's health experience because you disagree with his politics, that is not toughness.
It is not picong.
It is not -> character is data <-
It is cruel.
If you disagree with Darian attack his arguments.
If you think he is wrong prove him wrong.
Leave his health out of it.
And don't tell me that calling this behaviour out means I am trying to silence -> the ground <-
The PNM is not one skin colour.
It is not one class.
It is not one religion.
It is not one community.
The PNM is multi ethnic, multi cultural, multi religious, multi class and multi everything.
The PNM is for all.
Freedom of speech means you have the right to speak.
It does not mean the rest of us have to accept vulgarity, obscenity, bullying and personal attacks as the standard of PNM political culture.
For roughly the last eleven years, we have seen a recalcitrant minority within the PNM practising what I would describe as cabal style politics controlling narratives, defending personalities, bullying members, intimidating members and attacking fellow PNM members.
And then you wonder why people are disengaged.
In 2025, only about 7,100 of more than 102,000 eligible members voted in the internal election roughly seven percent.
Now one year later, we are back at internal elections this time at constituency level.
If the PNM continues with this same downward political trajectory, why should we assume participation will increase?
The answer cannot be more bullying.
It cannot be more intimidation.
It cannot be more abuse.
That is not bringing the membership back. It is driving them further away.
And it is alarming to see high calibre PNM people becoming so disillusioned with the internal climate that they are leaving.
People are not necessarily leaving because they stopped loving the PNM.
Many are leaving because they no longer recognise the PNM institution.
So please don't tell me this is simply how the PNM has always been.
You are confusing toughness with vulgarity.
We can fight hard without being filthy.
We can disagree without destroying our own members/supporters.
We can challenge leadership without turning it into personal warfare.
And finally I don't need a lecture on the PNM from any just come PNM particularly one who is still being sanitised from the politics of the murky lagoon.
There is nothing wrong with joining the PNM. New members are welcome.
But joining the party does not make you an instant authority on its history, its culture or its standards.
Learn the party.
Understand the history.
Then perhaps lecture somebody.
And this leadership contest you seem so determined to fight?
Perhaps you are seeing the boogeyman.
Because he certainly isn't in the room.
The campaign is over.
Accountability has begun.
The PNM does not need the loudest insult.
It needs the strongest argument.
It needs rebuilding not vulgarity.
It needs debate, not intimidation.
It needs unity not personality cults.
And it needs to remember one simple thing
The cabal is not the PNM.
The PNM is bigger than any faction.
Bigger than any personality.
And certainly bigger than you.
If the politics you want is the politics of the murky lagoon then don't let the gates of Balisier House hit you on your way there.
But don't bring it into the PNM and call it -> the ground <-. I'm just asking
