Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

It is the most con­tro­ver­sial time of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, but he has gone against the odds, and wish­es of his fam­i­ly, throw­ing his hat back in­to the po­lit­i­cal ring to con­test the Diego Mar­tin West seat, for the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). Apart from the cor­dial hand­shake he and Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning greet­ed each oth­er with on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form, they have not yet sat down to iron out their dif­fer­ences.

De­spite the strained re­la­tion­ship which was ev­i­dent dur­ing his cam­paign launch on Thurs­day, Row­ley re­fused to go to war, and in­stead trained his guns on the Op­po­si­tion coali­tion. So why, af­ter serv­ing the par­ty for the past 23 years, Row­ley has opt­ed to stay aboard rather than jump ship? Tak­ing time off from his hec­tic cam­paign last week, Row­ley, in a can­did and ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian at his Good­wood Park, Glen­coe, home, said the turn­ing of the tide was a rough ride.

"We have not had a one-on-one dis­cus­sion as yet. The last time I had that type of dis­cus­sion with the PM was the day I was fired from the Cab­i­net. "What­ev­er the dif­fer­ences are, I want to make it abun­dant­ly clear that I ac­knowl­edge him as the leader of the par­ty of which I am a mem­ber and of­fice hold­er, even if I dis­agree vig­or­ous­ly with some of the things he is de­fend­ing or has de­fend­ed.

"I am do­ing so in the con­text that it is not him, but the pol­i­cy and ac­tion that re­quire to be ad­just­ed. All my dis­agree­ments, pub­lic and pri­vate, have been re­spect­ful," an out­spo­ken Row­ley said. And what is the re­la­tion­ship be­tween him and his col­leagues? "I con­sid­er my­self a man­ag­er. A good man­ag­er is re­quired to work with peo­ple of all tem­pera­ments; from the sneaky to the open. "I have a good re­la­tion­ship with my col­leagues, some clos­er than oth­ers, but a bond de­vel­ops be­tween you and the peo­ple you are work­ing with in an or­gan­i­sa­tion.

"There are times when chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions de­vel­op, and some of the younger peo­ple do not know how to treat with it. "I think it is un­for­tu­nate that our last batch of young can­di­dates, many of whom start­ed to hold min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios through no fault of theirs, end­ed up in a cli­mate which ex­ist­ed in re­cent times. It is very un­for­tu­nate for them."

Noth­ing spe­cial about Calder Hart

As he spoke of the events that un­fold­ed dur­ing his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer the last two years, hurt was vis­i­ble on his coun­te­nance. "Con­trary to how some peo­ple see it, the fric­tion be­tween my­self and the leader of the PNM is not re­al­ly a Row­ley-Man­ning thing. It is how pub­lic busi­ness is con­duct­ed and from that stand­point, one can­not sub­sti­tute af­fec­tion for prin­ci­ples. "There were in­stances when I was per­son­al­ly at­tacked. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we could have had our dif­fer­ences with re­spect to pub­lic busi­ness and not re­sort to per­son­al at­tacks. "It is not about the heal­ing is­sue, but whether pub­lic pol­i­cy will see ad­just­ments, changes, and im­prove­ments, or will there be a main­te­nance of the sta­tus quo.

"Let me make this clear. There is noth­ing spe­cial about Calder Hart. If it was not Hart it would have been any­body else. This is where the coun­try should fo­cus; how this hap­pened, could it hap­pen again? "Who is to be held ac­count­able? If we spend all this time on re­venge and fo­cus on Hart, we will lose sight of the re­al prob­lem which cre­at­ed the Hart phe­nom­e­non. "He was a sim­ple pub­lic of­fi­cial con­duct­ing pub­lic busi­ness. The is­sue is how was it al­lowed to go this way."

It hurts

The teary-eyed faces of his wife Sharon and their two daugh­ters Tonya, 23, and Sonel, 21, has left him heart­bro­ken, pon­der­ing on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions if his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer is re­al­ly worth it. It has left him to make some of the most dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions any hus­band or fa­ther has to make. "It hurts. The last few years, es­pe­cial­ly, have been very dif­fi­cult. I have had to face down at­tempts to por­tray me as un­pleas­ant.

"I have been in pub­lic life for a long time and in pol­i­tics. I am not thin-skinned. I know that in this en­vi­ron­ment there are peo­ple who are pas­sion­ate­ly for and against you. "The job re­quires that you deal with all of them with a cer­tain amount of ac­cep­tance and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for your af­fairs to bal­ance. "When it gets down to at­tempts to have your char­ac­ter dam­aged; ar­rest­ed, and por­trayed as be­ing cor­rupt, these is­sues have se­ri­ous af­fects on your fam­i­ly, friends and com­mu­ni­ties. "If this is what one has to look for­ward to when you en­ter pub­lic life, then many peo­ple would with­hold their ser­vices from the are­na of pub­lic life."

My wife, my pil­lar of strength

Row­ley proud­ly at­trib­ut­es his courage to con­tin­ue press­ing on to his wife, who has been his prop in his weak­est mo­ments. "My wife has been my strongest sup­port­er; she has been a pil­lar of strength while she has stu­dious­ly kept away from the po­lit­i­cal are­na. "She is very pri­vate and very de­fen­sive of her fam­i­ly, while sup­port­ive of what I have done over the years. "My chil­dren have been very sup­port­ive; they have not com­plained of the sac­ri­fice to do pub­lic work, but re­cent­ly when at­tacks were di­rect­ed at their moth­er re­gard­ing this whole ques­tion of hav­ing mon­ey in a for­eign ac­count and all the strange be­hav­iour sur­round­ing the is­sue, I have seen the hurt, tears, and there were ex­pres­sions as to whether, in fact, this is what they have to look for­ward to.

"I still have their sup­port, though."

Through­out the storm, there were some mem­o­rable mem­o­ries that brought smiles to his face. The most re­cent was last week, dur­ing his cam­paign at La Puer­ta. "There are some pleas­ant mo­ments that make up for the pain. On­ly last week I met a group of school chil­dren. T hey were so ex­cit­ed that they held on to my arms, es­cort­ing me down the streets. "To me, it is very grat­i­fy­ing to know what my rep­re­sen­ta­tion does."

Com­mit­ted to PNM

De­spite the high and low roads, Row­ley has vowed to be com­mit­ted al­ways to the rul­ing par­ty. How­ev­er, he does not want to be seen as a su­pe­ri­or paragon of virtue, af­ter his re­turn to the fold.

"I am a nor­mal, law-abid­ing cit­i­zen who be­lieves there is a right and wrong way to do things. "We are both par­ty mem­bers. The Prime Min­is­ter holds high of­fice, and I hold of­fice. I am a great be­liev­er in the in­sti­tu­tion and not the servers of the in­sti­tu­tion. "I al­so think my fam­i­ly have ben­e­fit­ed tremen­dous­ly from pub­lic pol­i­cy in this coun­try. I nev­er ceased to re­mind them of that. "I am the prod­uct of good pub­lic pol­i­cy. In fact, PNM pol­i­cy moved me from a child with po­ten­tial from a dis­tant vil­lage from Ma­son Hall, To­ba­go, to uni­ver­si­ty and then to the cor­ri­dors of Par­lia­ment."

Why he did not speak at Wood­ford Square

Touch­ing briefly on his de­ci­sion not to speak in Wood­ford Square dur­ing the launch of the par­ty's cam­paign, Row­ley said the tim­ing was not ap­pro­pri­ate. "I am hear­ing fool­ish­ness and talk. That was my sev­enth out­ing at the pre­sen­ta­tion of can­di­dates. I was there in 2001, 2002 and in 2007, and I nev­er spoke. "Giv­ing me three min­utes there I would say, es­pe­cial­ly in the con­text of the sit­u­a­tion where I have found my­self as a can­di­date of great sur­prise; hav­ing to jus­ti­fy my ac­cep­tance of a nom­i­na­tion a three-minute at­tempt could have been gross­ly mis­un­der­stood by those who were in­ter­est­ed in that ap­pear­ance.

"By the time I had said "Hel­lo, good day"'it would have been over. It was not my choice of venue and oc­ca­sion to rein­tro­duce my­self in the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion.

"I am not in this for show; I would like to see some se­ri­ous­ness in the con­duct of busi­ness." Not get­ting ahead of him­self to pre­dict the out­come of the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion, Row­ley, how­ev­er, boast­ed that the PNM was a well-or­gan­ised po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion, and any­one com­ing up against the par­ty must re­spect and com­pete with it. He quick­ly point­ed out that while the par­ty's or­gan­i­sa­tion was at a high stan­dard, the PNM was not in­vin­ci­ble. "It is prob­a­bly the most se­ri­ous elec­tion since 1956. I am dis­ap­point­ed at the amount of fool­ish­ness com­ing off the plat­form in the coun­try. "No­body is ad­dress­ing the se­ri­ous life and death bread and but­ter is­sues threat­en­ing T&T."

"Peo­ple want to slide in­to of­fice by virtue of pre­sent­ing them­selves; how they think they should feel. Every can­di­date has to fight for every vote. Noth­ing must be tak­en for grant­ed. "This elec­torate is dif­fer­ent. The ques­tions chil­dren put to me now would not have been put to me back then. It is not for me to de­monise you or you de­monise me. "Who­ev­er you are about to elect, en­sure that they pos­sess the qual­i­ties for the job and that there are sys­tems for ac­count­abil­i­ty for what goes on in the name of the pub­lic. "Then we will know we are pro­gress­ing. The elec­tion will be a mi­ni-Car­ni­val, and we can have one every year."

Asked if he would ac­cept a min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio if the PNM re­turned to of­fice, a very hum­ble-speak­ing Row­ley re­spond­ed: "I do not get ahead of my­self. I will cross that bridge when we get there. In the mean­time, we have a long road to walk."

Cap­tions:

Diego Mar­tin West MP Kei­th Row­ley is sur­round­ed by his pil­lars, wife Sharon (left) daugh­ter Sonel, 21, (sec­ond left) and Tonya, 23, at their Good­wood Park, Glen­coe home. (An­dre Alexan­der)

A beam­ing Sonel Row­ley, 21, hugs her fa­ther, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, dur­ing an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian. (Kei­th Matthews)

Flanked by con­stituents Diego Mar­tin West MP re­mains com­mit­ted to the PNM. (Kris­t­ian de Sil­va)

Pho­tos: Kei­th Matthews, Kris­t­ian De Sil­va and An­dre ALEXAN­DER.