Gail Alexan­der

Shouts of "Ram­jack-and-PNM coali­tion" were tossed at the Op­po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day af­ter PNM whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald pre­sent­ed a ques­tion on be­half of the ab­sent ILP leader, Jack Warn­er.Anil Roberts and oth­er Gov­ern­ment MPs made the re­marks when Mc­Don­ald pre­sent­ed a ques­tion on the agen­da on be­half of Warn­er as he was not in the cham­ber at the time. The ques­tion was about CAL ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment posts.As soon as Mc­Don­ald pre­sent­ed the query, PP MPs yelled, "Whaaat!.. Eh-eh!"

"Coali­tion! Ram­jack and PNM!"Warn­er en­tered Par­lia­ment short­ly af­ter­wards, just af­ter PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley ar­rived.Yes­ter­day's "coali­tion" in­ci­dent came the day af­ter Warn­er crit­i­cised Row­ley, say­ing he would nev­er be Prime Min­is­ter.On Thurs­day Warn­er con­demned com­ments Row­ley made at a Diego Mar­tin meet­ing about state­ments on a Warn­er ra­dio pro­gramme about the PNM's in­ter­nal elec­tion.

Row­ley had claimed a par­ty leader had bought out ra­dio air time and it was be­ing made out on Warn­er's pro­gramme that sub­terfuge was be­ing used in the PNM elec­tion.

But Warn­er re­tort­ed, "I've tried my ut­most to stay very far from Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his PNM elec­tions. I didn't ut­ter a word when I was ac­cused of spon­sor­ing Pen­ny's cam­paign be­cause I didn't think that any use­ful pur­pose would have been served by dig­ni­fy­ing Row­ley's non­sense with a re­ply. Nei­ther Pen­ny (Beck­les) nor her cam­paign team has ever asked me for any sup­port of any kind.

"I stayed qui­et when Row­ley went af­ter me in his cam­paign meet­ings, es­pe­cial­ly at the Rus­sel Lat­apy School and again at Mo­ka a day lat­er, for I said to my­self that I have no in­ten­tion of go­ing down to Row­ley's lev­el."Warn­er added, "How­ev­er, in one dai­ly news­pa­per, Row­ley ac­cused me of in­ter­fer­ing in PNM's in­ter­nal elec­tions. It is be­yond dis­hon­est for Dr Row­ley to ac­cuse me of in­ter­fer­ing in PNM in­ter­nal elec­tions."Con­trary to his delu­sion, I am not his en­e­my nor his op­po­nent; Pen­ne­lope Beck­les- Robin­son is."

Warn­er al­so said he hadn't bought out air­time on any ra­dio sta­tion.He said he had "no in­ter­est in whether Dr Row­ley or Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son is PNM po­lit­i­cal leader," but added, "I know that whether or not Dr Row­ley is elect­ed as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader, he'll nev­er be elect­ed as Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try."

Warn­er said Row­ley should fo­cus "where his great­est threat lies, and that's with­in the PNM. He should be more con­cerned with unit­ing the PNM since he failed to unite the 12 PNM MPs. What hap­pens on May 1 is PNM's busi­ness but what hap­pens af­ter is of na­tion­al con­cern....come May 19, it will be a dif­fer­ent ball game."