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Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is push­ing back against crit­i­cism from with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), af­ter par­ty stal­warts urged her to ex­er­cise more de­ci­sive lead­er­ship of the 70-year-old or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Beck­les was re­spond­ing to a Guardian Me­dia spe­cial re­port pub­lished on Sun­day, which ex­am­ined her lead­er­ship fol­low­ing the PNM’s sweep­ing de­feat in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion, where the par­ty lost all 15 seats to the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty.

With lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions due next year, for­mer San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man An­tho­ny Roberts and for­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford both ques­tioned Beck­les’ de­ci­sive­ness.