Gail Alexan­der

A day af­ter at­tend­ing a Bap­tist func­tion along­side UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, PNM Diego Mar­tin West MP Kei­th Row­ley met yes­ter­day with his con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive and con­sent­ed to be nom­i­nat­ed as the PNM can­di­date for the seat.

The con­stituen­cy vice chair­man Sigler Jack con­firmed Row­ley's con­sent yes­ter­day af­ter hold­ing an hour-long meet­ing with Row­ley on the nom­i­na­tion is­sue. Al­so present was con­stituen­cy chair­man Su­san Wong and oth­er of­fi­cials. Jack said no oth­er per­sons have sub­mit­ted con­sent let­ters re­gard­ing Diego Mar­tin's West's nom­i­na­tion. Oth­er PNM con­stituen­cies were hus­tling yes­ter­day to fi­nalise nom­i­na­tions fol­low­ing PNM leader Patrick Man­ning's gen­er­al elec­tion an­nounce­ment last Sat­ur­day. Row­ley was one of sev­er­al in­cum­bents con­sent­ing yes­ter­day to be nom­i­nat­ed for their seats. Con­stituen­cies must sub­mit nom­i­na­tions by next Tues­day. Jack said the con­stituen­cy re­ceived the nom­i­na­tion form from PNM's Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters on Mon­day. He said of yes­ter­day's meet­ing with Row­ley: "The chair­man, my­self and the sec­re­tary met with Dr Row­ley to find out his in­ten­tions and whether he is will­ing to con­test elec­tions un­der a PNM ban­ner. "Dr Row­ley said he was will­ing to con­test as long as the peo­ple of the con­stituen­cy want­ed him. He was in a nice rec­on­cil­ia­to­ry mood. "He al­ways speaks to us well and he signed a let­ter of con­sent to be nom­i­nat­ed. I can put my head on a block and say he is PNM.

"We'll be send­ing his nom­i­na­tion to our 24 par­ty and youth groups and while we don't in­flu­ence what they want, I have no doubt Dr Row­ley will re­ceive their ap­proval." He added: "We owe him the re­spect as in­cum­bent to ask him if he is will­ing to con­test. That brought about our meet­ing with him. "In light of the sit­u­a­tion re­gard­ing the elec­tion an­nounce­ment we have to give him the re­spect as sit­ting rep­re­sen­ta­tive to as­cer­tain his po­si­tion. "Had he said 'no,' then we would have gone to look for oth­er nom­i­nees. The fi­nal de­ci­sion, of course, is not ours to make. It lies with PNM's screen­ing team but we have to ful­fill our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. "I'm con­fi­dent the par­ty groups will give him the nod since it has been said over and over that as long as he is of­fer­ing him­self they're go­ing to sup­port him." Asked if the con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials had asked Row­ley about the is­sues he has had with the par­ty lead­er­ship and his crit­i­cisms in the Par­lia­ment of the Gov­ern­ment's work, Jack said this was not done "di­rect­ly." Jack added: "I be­lieve every­body in Diego Mar­tin West is hop­ing there would be some form of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. I'm the eter­nal op­ti­mist. "It would be dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand...we have elec­tion 'am­mu­ni­tion' like Dr Row­ley and we have to leave him be­hind in an elec­tion."

Asked what the con­stituen­cy thought about Row­ley's ap­pear­ance along­side UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at a Bap­tist func­tion on Tues­day, host­ed by for­mer UNC Sen­a­tor Bar­bara Burke, Jack said: "We don't know the mes­sage be­hind his at­ten­dence there yet. But, I know he is PNM so let the oth­er side go ahead and count their chick­ens." Asked how the con­stituen­cy might feel if Row­ley was blanked by PNM's screen­ing team, led by Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning with whom Row­ley has is­sues, Jack said: "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it. We can on­ly wait and see. It's not in our con­trol. But, even if on­ly one par­ty group in our area nom­i­nates Kei­th, he will have the right to be screened. "There will come a time when Dr Row­ley will have to face the mu­sic and de­fend him­self. In screen­ing, not on­ly does the screen­ing team ask ques­tions, but our con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive is giv­en a chance to ask ques­tions al­so." Row­ley did not an­swer calls yes­ter­day.