Former PNM general secretary Ashton Ford says new blood is the only hope for the PNM and cautioned the new political leader not to appoint those who lost in the April 28 general election in the Parliament as senators.

The PNM lost the 2025 general election to the United National Congress and its coalition of interests 26-13, while the Tobago People's Party won the two Tobago seats. Over 100,000 people who traditionally voted for the PNM stayed away from the polls.

Ford, a former mayor of Arima, told Newsday he was there in 1986 to witness the PNM being defeated by the National Alliance for Reconstruction, winning only three of 36 seats, and the subsequent resignation of former prime minister George Chambers, which led to an internal election.