Jensen La Vende

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the re­sults of yes­ter­day’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions could have been worse af­ter the par­ty emerged vic­to­ri­ous in sev­en of the cor­po­ra­tions it con­test­ed, main­tain­ing the sta­tus quo from the De­cem­ber 2019 elec­tion.

Speak­ing to the me­dia at Bal­isi­er House, the head­quar­ters of the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), he dis­missed the thought that the par­ty main­tain­ing sev­en dis­tricts was a loss.

“My grand­moth­er taught me that no mat­ter how the sit­u­a­tion is, it could eas­i­ly have been so much worse. We are quite hap­py to not have been de­feat­ed or to have lost sig­nif­i­cant ground or any ground at all in the mid­dle of our sec­ond term as gov­ern­ment.”

Row­ley said there were high­lights that need­ed to be men­tioned, one of them be­ing the PNM win­ning the Lengua/In­di­an Walk seat in the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion. This, he said, was his­toric as PNM had nev­er won a seat in that cor­po­ra­tion be­fore. He said the PNM was over­joyed with that win.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the PNM fought hard for the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, but it still went to the UNC.

He said he was hap­py that the elec­tion was “now be­hind us.” He said it was wa­ter un­der the bridge and he was now look­ing for­ward to the gen­er­al elec­tion in 2025.

Speak­ing dur­ing the launch of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) on Sun­day, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly chief sec­re­tary and TPP po­lit­i­cal leader, called on Row­ley to call a gen­er­al elec­tion soon.

With­out be­ing asked, Row­ley re­spond­ed to that say­ing he will call the gen­er­al elec­tion when it is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due.

“We have ab­solute­ly no doubt and no fear that the next elec­tion will be vig­or­ous­ly fought. But let us not waste time try­ing to fight that elec­tion be­fore it be­comes due. Re­gard­less of who comes, the PNM will be there to con­test every seat, in every elec­tion.

“One thing that the PNM has done tonight, we’ve added two more po­lit­i­cal par­ties to the list of par­ties de­feat­ed by the PNM.”

Row­ley said the aim now is to ush­er in lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form and bring about the de­vo­lu­tion of pow­er that was promised.

He added that the re­form will have to be tran­si­tioned and he called on every­one, in­clud­ing op­po­si­tion MPs and coun­cil­lors, to work with the PNM to bring about the re­form.

“This elec­tion is over. My in­vi­ta­tion tonight is come do the best for your com­mu­ni­ty. Come do your best for your burgess. Come do the best for your cor­po­ra­tion. Come do the best for your bor­ough. Come do your the best for your city.

“And if we all do that, we would have done the best for T&T. We have se­ri­ous work to do as a na­tion and we in the gov­ern­ment, we are re­spon­si­ble for mak­ing de­ci­sions and had to make a num­ber of de­ci­sions that did not find favour with peo­ple who were af­fect­ed.”

Row­ley poked fun at Wat­son Duke’s Peo­ple’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (PDP), which failed to gain a seat in the Port of Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion.

Dur­ing his cam­paign Duke tout­ed him­self as the next may­or of the city.

Row­ley said: “We won all the seats in Port-of-Spain, so the shock­ing new may­or as promised is not to be had. We won sig­nif­i­cant­ly in San Juan/Laven­tille. We won hand­some­ly in Pi­ar­co/Tu­na­puna. We tied one seat in Ari­ma oth­er­wise we would have all seats in Ari­ma and, of course, we won all the seats in Point Fortin.”

Row­ley ad­dressed the me­dia at 10 pm. It was his first vis­it to Bal­isi­er House since con­struc­tion be­gan on the new build­ing. Tran­quil­i­ty Street was blocked off for cel­e­bra­tions, but it was not need­ed as those gath­ered could have eas­i­ly filled the court­yard of the PNM’s long-time head­quar­ters.

Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer of PNM Lau­rel Lee Sing-Leze­ma said the low turnout was due to the mem­ber­ship heed­ing the call to keep lo­cal gov­ern­ment lo­cal by re­main­ing in their re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties and not con­gre­gat­ing at Bal­isi­er House.

Ven­dors, ex­pect­ing huge sales, were left dis­ap­point­ed as PNM sup­plied free food and drinks to those gath­ered.

Row­ley’s mes­sage to the coun­try was sim­ple: “Come let us build a na­tion.”