The United National Congress (UNC) has denied that use of tapes in its "No Rowley" campaign, featuring former prime minister Patrick Manning criticising current People National Movement (PNM) leader Dr Keith Rowley, is a violation of Parliament's rules on use of excerpts of proceedings.
UNC spokesman Vasant Bharath responded to T&T Guardian questions on the issue hours after the UNC launched the campaign at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, on Monday, unveiling an anti-Rowley campaign for electronic, print, billboard and Web purposes called www.norowley.com.
The campaign features posters of Rowley, accuses the PNM of not having a plan on various issues and repeats Rowley's taped comment, "I don't know" on these issues.
It also involves tapes of Manning in Parliament criticising Rowley, from clips during 2008, soon after Manning had fired Rowley from the PNM cabinet.
Contacted on Parliament broadcast rules, Parliament officials referred to Parliament's Standing Orders on House of Representative rules for broadcasting (SO Appendix 2).
This states that the House authorises broadcasting of excerpts of its proceedings by radio and TV stations in accordance with certain conditions.
This includes that "broadcast of excerpts shall be used only for the purposes of fair and accurate reports of proceedings and shall not be used for political party advertising or election campaigning, satire, ridicule, purposes of maliciously attacking someone's reputation or character, or for commercial sponsorship or commercial advertising."
UNC campaign manager Rodney Charles said the tapes of Manning speaking had to have been in Parliament but he said it was in the public domain and was obtained from YouTube.
Bharath said the UNC had been advised that no transgressions regarding Parliament's Standing Orders had been committed since the tapes had been in the public domain for a very long time and had been used on several occasions, including on radio, TV and print.
At the media briefing, Bharath and Charles said the hard-hitting "No Rowley" campaign was not a personal attack on Rowley but was based on facts.
Bharath said: "There are 49 days until the people of T&T decide on who should form their next government and the choice before the electorate could not be clearer.
"It's a choice between Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who has delivered for the people of T&T and who has the vision to lead the country to prosperity, or Keith Rowley, an angry arrogant man who has no plan and no vision for T&T's future.
"To emphasise the clarity and importance of the choice T&T faces, today we launch a campaign that will show why Keith Rowley is such a poor choice to become our prime minister. The campaign will hold Rowley to account on his actions, his words and political record and it will make it clear he's not fit to become prime minister."
"The campaign is hard hitting but it's also factual and fair. It isn't based on what we have to say about Keith Rowley, it's based entirely on Keith Rowley's own words and the words of people who have worked closely with him.
"All these words make it clear Keith Rowley is a poor choice to become T&T's prime minister."
Charles said there have been challenges in getting the PNM to identify its plans to the public and the UNC would force the PNM to tell T&T this.
Bharath said the campaign was not funded by the Government but by parties within UNC. Neither he nor Charles could give the cost of the campaign, including the overall cost, or identify financiers.
He said UNC would be happy to disclose that when campaign finance reform laws were enacted. Asked if the PNM disclosed its financiers if the UNC would do same, Bharath said the UNC would examine disclosing.
Charles denied the campaign idea was that of UK consultants but admitted UNC had consultants "from all over" and took talent "from wherever it needed." He couldn't give the consultants' cost.
Charles, however, said Ross Advertising was not part of the campaign "in a significant way," but this had nothing to do with any "falling out."
Bharath said while Ross Advertising played a larger part in previous years, work was now spread around the advertising fraternity.
"We are not discarding anyone, we simply want to get different views," Bharath said.
The PNM subsequently issued a statement in Rowley's name responding to the UNC's ad campaign saying, the "UNC unmasking of themselves at the Hyatt is simply the unveiling and formalisation of an ongoing personalised hate campaign which ought to be wholly rejected by citizens. This is only their latest investment which they believe will substitute for accounting for their disastrous record which they now seek to run away from."
"What this country needs is a clean campaign on ideas, issues and accountability. The nation must reject this shameful type of politics especially when it comes from people who talk glibly about uniting the country when all that they offer is hatred, incompetence and divisiveness. This UNC Government will be judged on their known record and not on how much they hate Keith Rowley."