Richard?Lord

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ad­vis­ing cit­i­zens to ei­ther shut­down their work places or work for half the day on No­vem­ber 2 and take to the streets of Port-of-Spain at noon to de­mand good gov­er­nance. He said so at a pub­lic meet­ing of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)?held op­po­site Star­lite Shop­ping Plaza, Diego Mar­tin, on Thurs­day night.

When the PNM held a sec­ond round­table meet­ing of trade unions and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, the group de­cid­ed to "en­gage in a mas­sive demon­stra­tion through the streets of Port-of-Spain to de­mand the im­me­di­ate re­moval of Jack Warn­er and Anand Ram­lo­gan," Row­ley said. The or­gan­is­ers of the event said that would be a ma­jor protest as thou­sands of peo­ple were ex­pect­ed to take part.

The march is ex­pect­ed to be­gin at noon at Wood­ford Square and cul­mi­nate on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, Port-of-Spain. "Come out in your num­bers. Come out at high noon. Meet me in Wood­ford Square at high noon on No­vem­ber 2. Come out in your thou­sands, meet the PNM, meet the unions, meet the NGOs and we will walk the streets of Port-of-Spain," Row­ley said to the cheer­ing crowd.

He said the PNM was ready and pre­pared to stand up against the Gov­ern­ment be­cause cit­i­zens were now un­der threat from bad gov­er­nance. Row­ley said the PNM had no prob­lem in sup­port­ing "all bod­ies and per­sons in this coun­try who will stand up to this Gov­ern­ment."

He added: "Let Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment and her cronies know that you the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are not tak­ing that from them. "And we'll stand up in front of this Gov­ern­ment and say 'this is our coun­try and we will have it the way we want it.'"

Row­ley said em­ploy­ers should al­low their em­ploy­ees to leave work to at­tend the protest at high noon. He said the rule of law must pre­vail. In an ob­vi­ous ref­er­ence to the Sec­tion 34 fi­as­co, Row­ley said when the Gov­ern­ment used a sit­u­a­tion to cause peo­ple to be above the law em­ploy­ers must "close down their busi­ness­es on Fri­day No­vem­ber 2."

He told work­ers: "Come out from your busi­ness places half-day if you have to, put some­body to hold your ba­by if you have to, get in your taxi if you have to. " Row­ley called on cit­i­zens to show At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan that they had the pow­er to do some­thing about the Sec­tion 34 is­sue by en­gag­ing in mass protest on No­vem­ber 2.

A fiery Row­ley said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment "be­lieves that you are help­less, they be­lieve that you are hun­gry, they be­lieve that you are stu­pid and on that ba­sis they will get a longer term in of­fice." He added:?"Their days are num­bered. It is a one-term gov­ern­ment." He told the crowd that it was "on­ly when you push back at them that they sud­den­ly know what to do.

"So when you come out on the streets, they wouldn't be giv­ing any­thing back, you'd be tak­ing it back.