KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Hours af­ter the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) an­nounced it would be­gin ac­cept­ing nom­i­na­tions for the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the par­ty is ready to con­test any polls and is con­fi­dent they will beat their ri­vals.

Speak­ing at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Sports and Fam­i­ly Day at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day, Row­ley told sup­port­ers he was pleased with the turnout and buoyed and strength­ened by the sup­port.

“I ask you to stand by and wait for the call be­cause, in the mid­dle of the night, the dawn may not be too far away. Ladies and gen­tle­men, when­ev­er they are ready, THA elec­tion, by-elec­tion, gen­er­al elec­tion, we will beat them,” Row­ley said.

Ear­li­er on, he brought on stage Lengua/In­di­an Walk coun­cil­lor-elect Aut­ley Granthume, who won last Mon­day’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment by-elec­tion against the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Nicole Gopaul. He al­so ac­knowl­edged An­der­son Nanan, who al­most tripled the PNM’s vote in the Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo by-elec­tions from the Au­gust 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion in an elec­toral dis­trict the par­ty has nev­er won.

Row­ley said win­ning was not on­ly about the seat but be­com­ing a PNM stan­dard-bear­er so that every­one, re­gard­less of race, colour, creed, class or lo­ca­tion, has a qual­i­ty can­di­date to elect. He said the PNM was great in or out of of­fice, as it does not end its mis­sion on elec­tion day. He said an elec­tion day is on­ly the start of the work pro­gramme, while for oth­ers, it is mis­sion ac­com­plished.

“And af­ter that, it is five years of bac­cha­nal, thiev­ing, wrong cer­tifi­cate, drink­ing, drunk, and the hell with Trinidad & To­ba­go un­til the next elec­tion.”

Row­ley al­so jabbed at the UNC’s in­ter­nal squab­bling, say­ing even in Op­po­si­tion the PNM main­tained its con­sti­tu­tion and struc­ture. Now in Gov­ern­ment, he said all par­ty groups are en­gaged in elect­ing par­ty of­fi­cers.

He said the PNM would call mem­bers to its con­ven­tion to elect ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, and he guar­an­teed it will not cause any up­heaval be­cause the PNM is Dr Er­ic Williams’ par­ty.

Row­ley said some peo­ple had an­nounced they had par­ties but had no mu­sic, venue, or pa­tron. He said it is no joke when they ask cit­i­zens to put the coun­try first, as T&T re­quires se­ri­ous lead­er­ship.

As Row­ley ap­proach­es ten years as Prime Min­is­ter, he said he has nev­er been drunk on the job.

“No­body is hold­ing any se­cret for me with re­spect to what fi­nan­cial gifts they have giv­en me. The mem­bers of my Cab­i­net, not one of them could say to me, ‘If you move me, I will do that.’”

He said the time has come for peo­ple to take great care in con­sid­er­ing who they want to run their af­fairs, as some be­lieve it is about giv­ing peo­ple a chance. Row­ley said the coun­try once did that, giv­ing the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion a chance, but they went up Chan­cel­lor Hill. He said when the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship got the op­por­tu­ni­ty, it emp­tied the Trea­sury.

He said the PNM got a well-earned vic­to­ry and can point to how it moved the coun­try for­ward.

Ig­nor­ing ‘silk’ crit­i­cism

Row­ley al­so said he is ig­nor­ing claims of po­lit­i­cal bias sur­round­ing the award of “silk” to Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters. He said he was proud peo­ple of that qual­i­ty found their way to the PNM and demon­strat­ed their worth on be­half of T&T. He said when le­gal pro­fes­sion­als re­ceived “silk” last year, they in­clud­ed UNC mem­bers, in­clud­ing some who were known ac­tivists.

“When they got “silk,” I did not hear any­body ac­cus­ing me of po­lit­i­cal bias, but when qual­i­fied PNM mem­bers of the pro­fes­sion, one who served as at­tor­ney gen­er­al for five years, had more law ad­vanced to the Par­lia­ment than vir­tu­al­ly any oth­er at­tor­ney gen­er­al, the oth­er one who fought on his legs to bring back mil­lions of dol­lars to this coun­try, was made se­nior coun­sel, I see in the… po­lit­i­cal bias on be­half of the PNM.”

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi and Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land re­ceived “silk” from Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo last week.

Row­ley said it ap­pears that when UNC mem­bers get “silk,” the sys­tem is good but when a PNM per­son gets “silk” the sys­tem is bad.