Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour says that the lan­guage used by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on a mat­ter in a re­cent speech in St James was clear­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and in­sen­si­tive– and runs counter to cer­tain claus­es of the Coun­cil’s Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct.

Stat­ing this on Thurs­day, the coun­cil called on PM Row­ley as well as all po­lit­i­cal lead­ers in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions cam­paign to set an ex­am­ple for cit­i­zens to fol­low and to al­ways be mind­ful to avoid in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments.

The coun­cil al­so warned against peo­ple of­fer­ing in­duce­ments or un­der­tak­ing smear cam­paigns.

The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions are on Au­gust 14.

Guardian Me­dia sent queries to coun­cil chair­man Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath on Wednes­day re­gard­ing var­i­ous is­sues on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape amid cam­paign­ing—in­clud­ing Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith’s com­plaint about the PM’s lan­guage on a mat­ter at a St James PNM meet­ing.

Grif­fith wrote the coun­cil on Mon­day point­ing out Row­ley’s al­leged re­marks at the meet­ing: “They are go­ing to give a cer­tain race gun (sic) to shoot peo­ple of an­oth­er race be­cause they are say­ing that the crime in this coun­try which we know is across the board, is one race at­tack­ing an­oth­er.”

Grif­fith said the al­leged re­marks are “both alarm­ing and con­cern­ing as such an of­fen­sive ut­ter­ance has the po­ten­tial to cause ir­repara­ble con­se­quences”.

Urg­ing the coun­cil to re­view the footage of the meet­ing, Grif­fith claimed such “in­ten­tion­al­ly provoca­tive lan­guage can on­ly be seen as flout­ing prop­er po­lit­i­cal con­duct”.

Yes­ter­day, the coun­cil, in a state­ment signed by Ra­goonath, stat­ed that with cam­paign­ing now in full swing, sev­er­al con­cerns of pos­si­ble vi­o­la­tions to the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct (which was trans­mit­ted to par­ties) have been brought to its at­ten­tion. That in­clud­ed Grif­fith’s com­plaint about Row­ley’s com­ments.

The coun­cil stat­ed, “The coun­cil, hav­ing re­viewed the speech made by the Prime Min­is­ter, is of the view that the lan­guage used was clear­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and in­sen­si­tive.”

“To be sure, the state­ment from the Prime Min­is­ter runs counter to claus­es in two sec­tions of the code: the ‘Com­mit­ment’ sec­tion as well as the sec­tion on ‘Pro­hib­it­ed Con­duct’.”

Un­der ‘Com­mit­ment’ , the coun­cil said it was stat­ed: “Par­ties, Coali­tions and Can­di­dates agree to pro­mote and en­force re­spect, tol­er­ance, har­mo­ny and peace amongst their sup­port­ers and the gen­er­al pub­lic dur­ing the cam­paign, the elec­tions and in the post-elec­tion pe­ri­od by be­ing pos­i­tive role mod­els.”

Un­der the “Pro­hib­it­ed Con­duct” sec­tion, the Coun­cil not­ed it is stat­ed that they do not use lan­guage or act in a way that may: a) pro­voke vi­o­lence; or b) in­tim­i­date can­di­dates, mem­bers of par­ties, rep­re­sen­ta­tives or sup­port­ers of par­ties or can­di­dates, or vot­ers; or c) In­vite, en­cour­age or fos­ter ha­tred, re­sent­ment or any form of vi­o­lence.

The coun­cil added, “As Prime Min­is­ter, one would have ex­pect­ed that Dr Row­ley would be pro­mot­ing uni­ty in our di­ver­si­ty, and while it may not have been his in­ten­tion, the ut­ter­ances can eas­i­ly be in­ter­pret­ed as un­der­scor­ing our di­ver­si­ty and more crit­i­cal­ly could have led some sup­port­ers to em­brace and fos­ter ha­tred and di­vi­sive­ness for mem­bers of oth­er eth­nic com­mu­ni­ties in our so­ci­ety.”

“ In our quest to guard against such pos­si­bil­i­ties, Dr Row­ley as well as all po­lit­i­cal lead­ers must set an ex­am­ple for the cit­i­zens to fol­low and must al­ways be mind­ful to avoid in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments.”