SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

The moth­er of for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi does not be­lieve her son’s re­as­sign­ment to the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment is a de­mo­tion but views it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for him to serve in a dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ty.

“I am de­light­ed. I have no prob­lem with it at all. I think it is an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve,” an ex­cit­ed Di­ane Seuk­er­an told Guardian Me­dia in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

She was speak­ing of Al-Rawi’s re­moval as AG by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Wednes­day, which came as a shock­er to the coun­try.

Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, has re­placed Al-Rawi.

Al-Rawi has tak­en over from Kaz­im Ho­sein, who has been re­as­signed to the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry.

“I think he is well suit­ed for the job and it is a won­der­ful, won­der­ful, op­por­tu­ni­ty for him to do what he re­al­ly wants to do...in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple and move the coun­try for­ward.”

Giv­en the Op­po­si­tion’s re­fusal to sup­port crit­i­cal bills, Seuk­er­an, 76, ad­mit­ted that Al-Rawi was ex­treme­ly “frus­trat­ed” in the AG post.

“This is my grouse with the UNC. Let us not play pol­i­tics with the laws that af­fect the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She said the phrase “jus­tice de­layed is jus­tice de­nied” is “some­thing that we all know to be true.”

Stat­ing that she has no agen­da or “co­coa in the sun,” Seuk­er­an said she wants a coun­try that is safe.

“Not this ab­solute racism and ha­tred that we see go­ing on in Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day,” she said.

She said her son’s main fo­cus as AG was the fast de­liv­ery of jus­tice “and the change of sys­tems of the le­gal laws...get­ting it to work in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple...not for the crim­i­nals on­ly. Right now the laws seem to work on­ly for the crim­i­nals.”

Seuk­er­an said her son was al­so push­ing to get the court sys­tem mov­ing to en­sure greater eq­ui­ty.

“When you get to the point where the Op­po­si­tion keeps say­ing, no, no, no, no to every­thing you want to do as a lawyer that is in the in­ter­est of jus­tice, no wit­ness anonymi­ty...every bill that is in the in­ter­est of the vic­tim... get­ting the right to anonymi­ty...peo­ple be­ing able to come out as wit­ness­es...I know who killed my son, I saw them but I can’t say it be­cause they would come and kill my oth­er chil­dren. All that is go­ing on in our coun­try.”

She said her son want­ed to pass crit­i­cal laws as AG but had be­come “frus­trat­ed.”

Out­side of that, she holds the view that Al-Rawi was “a damn good AG, as every­body would tell you.”

Al-Rawi was re-elect­ed as MP for San Fer­nan­do West in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion and held the po­si­tion of AG for six years.

Asked if Al-Rawi ever ex­pressed his frus­tra­tion to her, Seuk­er­an said no.

“In terms of his pol­i­tics, no...Faris at all has not been un­der any dis­tress po­lit­i­cal­ly. The Gov­ern­ment was fo­cused on do­ing what was right.”

But he did con­fide to her that the Op­po­si­tion’s re­luc­tance to sup­port cru­cial bills was frus­trat­ing.

“So Faris has ex­pressed that. As my son, he has ex­pressed that.”

De­scrib­ing Al-Rawi as a peo­ple’s per­son, Seuk­er­an said he was born and bred in San Fer­nan­do and has al­ways been on the ground.

His new post, she said, will “al­low him to re­al­ly touch lives. He is a team play­er.”

Even though po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts viewed Al-Rawi”s shift as a big de­mo­tion, Seuk­er­an did not see it as a step down for her son.

“Not at all. You have to un­der­stand some­thing, the Gov­ern­ment can’t get fur­ther and Reg­gie Ar­mour is an ex­cel­lent man for the job.”

Asked what she thought Ar­mour may do dif­fer­ent­ly, Seuk­er­an said he will con­tin­ue to do what Al-Rawi has done.

“But there is no change in the per­spec­tive of Gov­ern­ment when it comes to the poli­cies of Gov­ern­ment and Reg­gie as a sea­soned lawyer will do ex­treme­ly well, plus as hav­ing been head of the bar. Faris, re­mem­ber, has al­ways been seen in a po­lit­i­cal light be­cause he is al­so an MP. Reg­gie does not have that. Reg­gie is freer in that sense.”

Seuk­er­an said the po­si­tion Al-Rawi now holds is im­por­tant, as Gov­ern­ment gets set to im­ple­ment lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.

“This is the sec­ond ma­jor plank of the Gov­ern­ment man­i­festo....every­thing they have promised the peo­ple. And for Faris to be cho­sen to lead that is a tremen­dous ho­n­our.”

She said if the PM felt that Al-Rawi was best suit­ed for the job, she has to abide by the de­ci­sion.

“Sure, Faris is de­light­ed with it. I am de­light­ed with it.”

As head of his Cab­i­net, Seuk­er­an said Row­ley al­so has the pre­rog­a­tive to re­as­sign or move any of his min­is­ters.

“The ques­tion is did he do this in anger with Faris, or did he do this in the in­ter­est of what he wants to achieve for the coun­try? That is the on­ly ques­tion that has to be asked. And in my view and hav­ing some in­sight in­to the back­ground, he has done this in the in­ter­est of fur­ther­ing the in­ter­est of the coun­try and of his par­ty. So it is an ho­n­our as well.”

Row­ley, she said, has made tough de­ci­sions for the bet­ter­ment of the coun­try.

“Whether you like him (Row­ley) or not, give him his due. And I don’t think he would take a de­ci­sion like this light­ly.”

Pressed on if there was any rift or rum­bling with­in the PNM, Seuk­er­an said while you can­not please every­one, “there is no dis­sen­sion against Faris with­in the PNM from the top to the bot­tom. Who vex who didn’t get what they want...that kind of thing, that is nor­mal.”

Seuk­er­an served as San Fer­nan­do West MP from 2002 to 2007 and as min­is­ter of state in the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try.

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