Richard Lord

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the with­draw­al of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment was "noth­ing more than a con­science vote" against the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led coali­tion. Ab­du­lah said the labour-based MSJ had de­cid­ed to leave the Gov­ern­ment be­cause the so­cial con­tract with the peo­ple was not be­ing met. Row­ley said yes­ter­day the MSJ's move "clear­ly makes non­sense of Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al brava­do which so of­ten pro­claims they are more unit­ed than ever." Row­ley added: "It now puts an end to the fre­quent fu­tile as­sur­ances (from the PM) that she has all that it takes to keep the part­ner­ship to­geth­er."

He said T&T was be­ing gov­erned by "a thin­ly dis­guised UNC ca­bal hid­ing be­hind an em­bar­rassed veil of dis­pos­able fa­cil­i­tat­ing groups." Row­ley said it was on­ly the "des­per­ate de­sire"of St Au­gus­tine MP and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har to hold on to the UNC con­stituen­cy, which he oc­cu­pies, that is de­lay­ing the COP's "de­par­ture from the wreck." Row­ley said gov­er­nance un­der the PP was "a stream of sti­fling con­fu­sion, over­whelm­ing in­com­pe­tence, run­away cor­rup­tion, lack of na­tion­al con­fi­dence and a gen­er­al feel­ing of chron­ic dis­ap­point­ment." Row­ley said the wider pop­u­la­tion would "di­vorce it­self from the UNC." He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was fi­nal­ly ad­mit­ting "all the part­ner­ship talk is a sham and it was a UNC ca­bal which re­mains un­af­fect­ed as the dis­il­lu­sioned po­lit­i­cal neo­phytes with­draw in deep dis­ap­point­ment."