After the PNM's historic win in Tobago last Monday and renewed credibility, party leader Dr Keith Rowley, being dubbed by supporters the next prime minister, is hinting at the creation of a new PNM to win the 2015 general election. "If the PNM was not created in 1956, it will have to be invented now," Rowley said.
He slipped in the announcement, without fanfare, to supporters at a PNM thanksgiving service in celebration of the party's 57th anniversary at Balisier House on Thursday night. Supporters remained non-responsive. The service, coming two days after the Tobago PNM Council toppled the Government-backed Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP) in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election, turned into one of celebration of the party's victory.
Recalling that party founder and T&T's first prime minister Dr Eric Williams deemed "adventure" as part of the PNM's mission in developing a people and nation, Rowley said this adventure also involved building the party. "Seventy-two hours after the victory (in Tobago), we are in a very different place," he said.
Rowley said there is a fashion of revisionism developing in the world. "People are revising history to shape their own futures," he observed. The PNM's war now is to defend the people of T&T from what does not serve their best interest, he said. Indicating he took the advice and warning of Pastor Vivian Duncan seriously, Rowley said, "The PNM's future will be secure if the pastor's advice to stand for truth and integrity is heeded.
"My belief is that as long as we take positions on the principles of truth and integrity, we have nothing to fear but success." He also called on supporters to work together as a team. "We are a team. No team has won a race where the horses are pointing in different directions."
Rowley told supporters while they celebrated the Tobago victory, they should prepare to work hard for the upcoming local government elections later this year and the 2015 general election. PNM chairman Franklin Khan, addressing supporters, said under THA Chief Secretary Orville London and Rowley, the PNM is back on course to return to the corridors of power.
Khan also reminded supporters of the upcoming elections and the need to work hard for them. "We have won a battle, not the war," he noted. Answering questions from the media after the service, Rowley dismissed allegations by UNC chairman Jack Warner that Tobagonians voted on the basis of tribal instincts in the THA election.
He said Warner did not understand Tobagonians and recalled that the Tobago PNM Council found one East Indian candidate, Ranjit Singh, for a THA election several years ago.