Kali­fa Clyne

For­mer Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing says he has re­signed from the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) af­ter 50 years due to the par­ty's in­ter­nal bit­ter­ness and vi­cious­ness and the hypocrisy of po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Lee Sing, who made his de­par­ture from the par­ty pub­lic on so­cial me­dia site Face­book on Sun­day, said the de­par­ture had been com­ing since 2012.

He said his dis­en­chant­ment with the PNM was not new but start­ed when Row­ley at­tempt­ed to have him im­peached in 2012, fol­low­ing his (Lee Sing's) pub­lic state­ments against Row­ley's failed mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.He said there were a num­ber of oth­er rea­sons for his de­par­ture but added he was not sure whether he would be join­ing any oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

"I'm at that time in my life where I want to say and do as I wish and that can't hap­pen in the PNM. I am al­so not about blind loy­al­ty," Lee Sing said yes­ter­day in a tele­phone in­ter­view."To be a PNM mem­ber to­day you must have a long brown nose, and you must po­si­tion your­self be­low the waist of the po­lit­i­cal leader."Lee Sing, who said he was a mem­ber of the par­ty since he was 14 years old, said he felt there was too much bit­ter­ness and ac­ri­mo­ny in the par­ty.

"What I am see­ing is a fu­ture I don't want to be a part of."Lee Sing made his fi­nal de­ci­sion re­gard­ing his fu­ture with the par­ty af­ter he was in­ter­viewed on a ra­dio sta­tion on Sat­ur­day.Dur­ing the show he was asked which par­ty he would be sup­port­ing for the gen­er­al elec­tion."I made a state­ment that the dev­il you know may not be as bad as the dev­il you dont know. It went vi­ral."

Lee Sing be­gan re­ceiv­ing con­dem­na­tion from callers as well as from mem­bers of the PNM."The num­ber of bit­ter com­ments that came my way told me that this was not a place I need to be in. I ex­pect peo­ple to dis­agree but I don't ex­pect them to hate me."I am not go­ing to con­tin­ue with a par­ty that is so vi­cious. I think they are hapy to see me go," he added.He raised ques­tions about Row­ley's lead­er­ship, say­ing there was no room for de­bate in the PNM.

"Peo­ple seem to for­get that Row­ley, dur­ing the elec­tion of the PNM, was per­haps the most vo­cif­er­ous crit­ic of the par­ty and the po­lit­i­cal leader."Peo­ple seem to for­get he talked about court mar­tialling the po­lit­i­cal leader; he spoke against the par­ty and the po­lit­i­cal leader in Par­lia­ment. One would have ex­pect­ed a man like Dr Row­ley to wel­come de­bate and dis­cus­sion.""Dr Row­ley is the par­ty. If, God for­bid, Dr Row­ley was to die to­mor­row, I don't know what would hap­pen to the par­ty.

"I do not see Al-Rawi (PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al- Rawi), who be­lieves he will be the next po­lit­i­cal leader or Mar­lene Mc Don­ald (Port-of-Spain South MP) tak­ing us any­where."Lee Sing said he was al­so con­cerned about how the par­ty was be­ing man­aged and led.

"Why in three years the ex­ec­u­tive on­ly had sev­en meet­ings.He said in­stead of the PNM mak­ing friends among them­selves they were mak­ing en­e­mies.

"They be­lieve if you do not sup­port Dr Row­ley you are marked for death."As for join­ing an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty, Lee Sing said he did not know what God had in store for him."This is the first elec­tion I am not nec­es­sar­i­ly go­ing to vote for the PNM. I will look at all of the can­di­dates of all of the par­ties and I will vote for who I be­lieve will give me the best rep­re­sen­ta­tion.