Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

It's a move no­body ex­pect­ed so soon. But the "wa­jang", as Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley was no­to­ri­ous­ly brand­ed by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, has risen to the oc­ca­sion si­lenc­ing all his de­trac­tors. Many in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) nev­er an­tic­i­pat­ed the overnight trans­for­ma­tion of the par­ty. This, giv­en the head­strong and de­ter­mined ap­proach by Man­ning to re­main at the helm as po­lit­i­cal leader de­spite calls for him to step down. But as fate would have it, the de­feat in the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion cleared the way for Row­ley to go for glo­ry af­ter Man­ning re­signed as leader of the par­ty.

To­day, Row­ley will take up the man­tle as new po­lit­i­cal leader at an in­stal­la­tion cer­e­mo­ny at 2 pm at City Hall, San Fer­nan­do. Up to yes­ter­day it was un­con­firmed whether Man­ning would be at­tend­ing to­day's func­tion. When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, out­go­ing par­ty chair­man Con­rad Enill told Sun­day Guardian as a sit­ting MP Man­ning is en­ti­tled to at­tend the cer­e­mo­ny, how­ev­er, he could not con­firm if the San Fer­nan­do East MP would be present.

Enill said all MPs, sen­a­tors and mem­bers of the gen­er­al coun­cil are card­ed to at­tend the func­tion. Row­ley will be­come the fourth po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of the late Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers and his pre­de­ces­sor, Man­ning. Rest­ing heavy on his shoul­ders are the tasks of re­struc­tur­ing the PNM and liv­ing up to the ex­pec­ta­tion of the PNM faith­ful. The unan­swered and burn­ing ques­tion on PN­Mites lips is–does Row­ley have what it takes to bring back the PNM from a crush­ing de­feat?

Ryan: No bet­ter man for the job

In an in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Sel­wyn Ryan said there was no bet­ter man for the job. "If any­body has what it takes, Row­ley is the man for the job. I ex­pect him to per­form well in the ca­pac­i­ty as po­lit­i­cal leader. "The fact that the lo­cal elec­tions is hap­pen­ing so quick­ly af­ter a gen­er­al elec­tion will of course com­pli­cate mat­ters but it will be an op­por­tu­ni­ty for him to build more sup­port. The elec­tion does present prob­lems par­tic­u­lar­ly when the par­ty is fac­ing fi­nan­cial trou­bles. The im­por­tant fac­tor though is that the new leader is mobolis­ing sup­port."

Ra­goonath says Row­ley's in­ten­tions sit good

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, who said if Row­ley was com­mit­ted to lis­ten­ing to the peo­ple he is on the right track. "I ex­pect Row­ley to lead the par­ty to the best of his abil­i­ty. He has said that he is go­ing to be lis­ten­ing to the peo­ple and fol­low the di­rec­tives of peo­ple. "He has promised to use the old phi­los­o­phy of the PNM and from where I stand that sits good. The for­mer lead­er­ship had lost touch with the peo­ple. "His sug­ges­tion that he's go­ing back to peo­ple has al­ways been im­por­tant as­pect of par­ty pol­i­tics," Ra­goonath said.