Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les says he will per­son­al­ly reach out to par­ty stal­wart Ash­ton Ford, af­ter the vet­er­an mem­ber pub­licly raised con­cerns about the Op­po­si­tion’s in­ter­nal af­fairs, say­ing the is­sues present an op­por­tu­ni­ty for di­a­logue rather than di­vi­sion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, where mem­bers gath­ered for an in­ter­faith ser­vice, Gon­za­les de­clined to say whether Ford’s claims were true but ac­knowl­edged they re­flect­ed con­cerns that de­served to be heard.

Gon­za­les said, “Per­haps it presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the lead­er­ship of the par­ty to meet with Mr Ford to have those mat­ters ven­ti­lat­ed and per­haps re­solved. So, I don’t see those things in a re­al­ly neg­a­tive way quite frankly. I think it helps the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process. It helps lead­er­ship when mem­bers ex­press se­ri­ous con­cerns about mat­ters with­in the par­ty and they ought not to be dis­cour­aged.”