Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says he’ll be tak­ing care­ful note of how many peo­ple want him to re­main as Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment leader.

And he’s al­so tak­ing a small wa­ger that some­where in the Lead­ers in Ser­vice (LIS) group, “or very close to this group,” will be the PNM’s lead­er­ship in the next few years.

Row­ley spoke about the mat­ters at Thurs­day’s LIS meet­ing at Car­o­line Build­ing, Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go. The group is bid­ding to be­come the PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive in in­ter­nal polls on No­vem­ber 26-27 and De­cem­ber 4.

Say­ing that PNM demon­strates sta­bil­i­ty, Row­ley said there were three groups lead­ing teams in the elec­tion and there was no prob­lem, since on De­cem­ber 4 it will be set­tled one way or an­oth­er.

On the elec­tion, Row­ley added, “It will be my de­ci­sion to take care­ful note of how many peo­ple want me to re­main. So, I ask you for your sup­port if you think I’m the best choice. If not, lead­er­ship emerges and if you don’t be­lieve me, ask the Re­pub­li­can par­ty in Amer­i­ca, all kin­da lead­ers emerge, not nec­es­sar­i­ly suc­cess­ful­ly.”

Row­ley not­ed that very ear­ly, he’d said he wasn’t putting up a slate.

“I didn’t say I’m not as­so­ci­at­ed with a slate,” he stressed.

He said that was be­cause if he had a slate, most can­di­dates would have been un­op­posed, as there might have been a sen­ti­ment that was the leader’s slate and couldn’t be beat­en and peo­ple may not have par­tic­i­pat­ed.

Row­ley added, “But that’s not what’s called for at this time of tran­si­tion (that PNM’s in), it’s called for the ‘cream to rise to the top’ on its own strength.

“It means let me see who gen­uine­ly wants to serve PNM and has what it takes to come out and stand up and say they’d like to of­fer them­selves. And that is the per­son you re­al­ly want. As a re­sult, tonight we’ve pre­sent­ed the fu­ture of the PNM.”

He added, “I’m not a bet­ting man but some­times I could take a small wa­ger and I’d take a small wa­ger that some­where in the group that was pre­sent­ed here tonight, or very close to this group, is the lead­er­ship of the PNM in the next four to five, six, sev­en years.

“And it wouldn’t have been hand-picked by me the out­go­ing po­lit­i­cal leader ... they came up in­di­vid­u­al­ly and alone, some sur­pris­ing­ly so,.... they come from all over T&T.”

Say­ing that in­clud­ed San Fer­nan­do, Row­ley added, “San Fer­nan­do peo­ple al­ways in PNM - there’s no PNM with­out San Fer­nan­do.”

Not­ing that he’d been the po­lit­i­cal leader for 12 years and on the Gov­ern­ment job for sev­en years, Row­ley said af­ter the De­cem­ber 4 con­ven­tion, “I in­tend to take a va­ca­tion next year as I’m al­lowed a month’s va­ca­tion... I haven’t tak­en any for sev­en years. I’m tak­ing one next year—at least one. Be­cause I know I’ll be leav­ing the par­ty and coun­try in good hands.”

He said he hadn’t planned to go be­yond 2020 but had changed this po­si­tion due to a cer­tain sit­u­a­tion (C BOX).

Row­ley said that at this time, PNM is in tran­si­tion.

“And as usu­al, the feisty peo­ple of To­ba­go take the lead.”

Not­ing To­ba­go’s THA elec­tion, he said they’d tak­en the lead to cre­ate the lead­er­ship of the fu­ture in To­ba­go “by vot­ing out every­body who was there for a long time—clean, clean clean.”

He not­ed PNM To­ba­go’s cur­rent young lead­er­ship—To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis and THA Mi­nor­i­ty leader Kelvon Mor­ris.

“So, To­ba­go busi­ness fix as re­gards lead­er­ship go­ing for­ward, fixed by the peo­ple of To­ba­go, they didn’t even ask PNM to fix it.”

Not­ing the PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil and Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive had broad­ened the elec­tion days to No­vem­ber 26-27 to al­low vot­ers who don’t at­tend the De­cem­ber 4 con­ven­tion, he added, “...We end up in the cour­t­house!”