Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has dis­missed Gov­ern­ment's claims that the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment was be­ing di­vi­sive by hold­ing its own In­de­pen­dence can­dle­light pro­ces­sion and re-en­act­ment of the na­tion­al flaghoist­ing cer­e­mo­ny. Row­ley de­nied the claims as he ad­dressed thou­sands of PNM sup­port­ers as­sem­bled at Bal­isi­er House on Thurs­day night for the re-en­act­ment cer­e­mo­ny fol­low­ing the pro­ces­sion from St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain.

Row­ley said as far as he was aware T&T was still a free coun­try where cit­i­zens have the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to as­so­ciate. He said the Op­po­si­tion was pre­pared to work with oth­ers to en­sure the gold­en ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tions were the grand­est. The can­dle­light pro­ces­sion was from the Red House to the PNM head­quar­ters at Bal­isi­er House on Tran­quil­i­ty Street, Port of Spain. It fea­tured cul­tur­al per­for­mances from var­i­ous artistes, in­clud­ing Mavis John, Shiv Shak­ti Dancers, Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ers, ca­lyp­son­ian Skatie and oth­ers. Short­ly be­fore mid­night, as the Union Jack was low­ered, su­porters chant­ed "Come down, Jack (Warn­er), come down."