Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has slammed and re­butted com­ments made about him by for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al in a col­umn deal­ing with the re­cent is­sues of Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke and his for­mer deputy leader Kezel Jack­son.

Row­ley re­spond­ed on his Face­book page on Wednes­day, un­der a post head­lined Undis­put­ed Facts On­ly, No Re­vi­sion Please, to state­ments Ram­di­al made in a T&T Guardian col­umn head­lined Sex Lies and Politricks.

Ram­di­al had said, “In Trin­ba­go, we have had more than our fair share of po­lit­i­cal scan­dals, many sex-re­lat­ed. Such al­le­ga­tions have been lev­elled at PM Row­ley and for­mer PMs Pan­day and Per­sad-Bisses­sar.”

Ram­di­al al­so list­ed for­mer MPs Dar­ryl Smith, Anil Roberts, Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh and Chan­dresh Shar­ma.

But Row­ley, on Face­book, asked Ram­di­al what sex scan­dal she knew him to have been as­so­ci­at­ed with.

Row­ley said, “Hel­lo Ra­mona, my for­mer par­lia­men­tary col­league, I just read your ar­ti­cle where you list­ed me among the likes of Duke, Pan­day and Anil Roberts, who got them­selves in sex scan­dals. What sex scan­dal do you know me to have been as­so­ci­at­ed with?

“If you are talk­ing about the UNC al­le­ga­tion of rape against me and my fa­ther then, you as a woman, who took part in that dis­grace­ful, ly­ing trav­es­ty which stained our Par­lia­ment, should be mak­ing apolo­gies and ask­ing for for­give­ness. I nev­er played any vic­tim. I ig­nored you all and the pub­lic who were so re­pulsed by the nas­ti­ness of the UNC (don’t for­get that Ver­nel­la spoke with the full sup­port of ALL the UNC mem­bers) and dealt de­ci­sive­ly with you all.”

Row­ley added, “In­ci­den­tal­ly, it was the first time in 100 years that any Com­mon­wealth Gov­ern­ment at­tempt­ed to vote an Op­po­si­tion Leader out of a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­lia­ment. The first time it failed be­cause the Aus­tralian Speak­er re­fused to al­low that gov­ern­ment mo­tion to be en­ter­tained. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, in Trinidad and To­ba­go, a UNC Speak­er, Wade Mark, al­lowed it and shame­ful­ly, you and all oth­er UNC Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment vot­ed to slan­der and ex­pel the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“The pop­u­la­tion re­deemed the coun­try’s virtue by boot­ing the UNC out of of­fice. It is now be­ing said by you that it was my vic­tim­hood that caused the PNM vic­to­ry in 2015. How then do you ex­plain the sec­ond vic­to­ry in 2020?

“We of the PNM and the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty have a view that is quite dif­fer­ent to that of UNC par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and colum­nists. You will not be al­lowed to con­tin­ue the lie as you at­tempt to re­vise his­to­ry in your favour.”

Af­ter news of Row­ley’s new COVID bout broke yes­ter­day, Ram­di­al post­ed on her Face­book page, “Wish­ing you a speedy re­cov­ery PM Row­ley.”

She ac­com­pa­nied the post with pray­ing hands emo­jis.