The Tribune

By KEILE CAMPBELL

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

MEMBERS of the Free National Movement’s (FNM) women’s association expressed discontent with the election process for their association, claiming there is foul play and favouritism from the party’s leadership towards one candidate.

The association will hold an election on Thursday.

Antoinette Nesbitt, one of the candidates for president, was one of several members of the association who took issue with the inclusion of Laverne Bowe – the supposed favourite of FNM leader Michael Pintard – claiming she is not eligible.

The Tribune understands a meeting was set for Monday morning so candidates concerned about the matter could look over the attendance book.

When Ms Nesbitt showed up for the meeting with her legal counsel, Ms Bowe reportedly requested that the meeting be adjourned so she could bring her own legal counsel.

Ms Bowe later returned with her legal counsel and an entourage of supporters.

Pam Wallace-Miller, an executive member of the FNM Women’s Association for three consecutive terms, said she does not believe the election process has been fair.

She said members’ concerns were addressed only after writing to the party chairman three times.

Ms Wallace-Miller claimed Ms Bowe is Mr Pintard’s preferred candidate.

“It’s been said if you’re not voting for Team Bowe, then you’re not supporting the leader,” she said.

“This is affecting the democratic process of the party greatly because everybody has a right to choose, not to be gerrymandered. We have a constitution that should be abided by. I am the constitution queen. I don’t care who you are, what position you hold. If I feel like you’re going against a constitution, I am going to speak to it. You can ask anyone in this organisation, that’s me,” she said.

Chairman Dr Duane Sands said it is his job to ensure “free and fair elections”.

“Nobody is getting preferential treatment,” he said.

“What we are going to do is ensure that all parties have all issues addressed, and as you can imagine, both teams have issues that they wish to have addressed; they’re being considered.”

He said there is “not a shred” of credibility to claims that Ms Bowe is ineligible.

“I don’t think that there’s any benefit of repeating these types of scurrilous, nonsensical allegations, okay? They’re simply not so. Categorically not so,” he said.

Ms Nesbitt said the meeting went “fairly okay”, but there are still concerns.

“We have persons that are allegedly eligible, and we know that they’re not,” she said, not wanting to go into further details until the final candidate list is released to her, which she expected to receive today.

“We know that persons should not be on this list. The women’s association has their constitution. The party has their constitution, but we are to follow our constitution based on our association, the Women’s Association. We’re not governed by the party’s constitution.”

Dr Sands said the FNM is guided not only by the Women Association’s constitution, but also by a “recently ratified constitution of the Free National Movement, which is the supreme constitution of the organisation”.

UPDATE: The newspaper version of this story reported that when Ms Bowe returned to the FNM’s headquarters yesterday, Mr Pintard made an appearance. However, Mr Pintard has denied this, saying he was in the House of Assembly at the time and never showed up at the FNM’s headquarters.

CORRECTION: In Tuesday's Tribune, in the printed version of this article, it was reported that FNM leader Michael Pintard made an appearance at a meeting on Monday. Mr Pintard was not present. We apologise for the error.