Fran­cis Joseph

A fiery Dr Kei­th Row­ley last night lashed out at his crit­ics and those in the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), call­ing on them to "stop de­mon­is­ing my Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning." While he de­fend­ed Man­ning, he al­so took digs at his po­lit­i­cal leader for the re­la­tion­ship that ex­ist­ed be­tween the two longest serv­ing PNM MPs. In his first ap­pear­ance dur­ing the cam­paign on a PNM plat­form at Four Roads, Diego Mar­tin, Row­ley de­fend­ed what he had done in rais­ing is­sues with his own Gov­ern­ment. He in­sist­ed he was a PNM back­bencher rais­ing is­sues with a PNM Gov­ern­ment. Traf­fic crawled for miles as a large crowd turned up to hear the Diego Mar­tin West can­di­date.

They were not dis­ap­point­ed as Row­ley, fired as a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter by Man­ning in 2008, lashed out at the Op­po­si­tion par­ties which are seek­ing to win the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. He said the par­ties have not stat­ed what were their poli­cies. Row­ley said he was a mem­ber of the ship–T&T PNM. He said the ship had gone in­to bat­tle and that was not the time to throw the cap­tain over­board. He said: "I am a sailor in the PNM ship. I know what my du­ty is. The bat­tle cry is 'don't give up the ship.' It is not time for dry dock or the dock­yard. It is not the time for court-mar­tial." He spoke against the back­drop of a bill­board which read: "All the man we need, Row­ley, in­tegri­ty, loy­al­ty, strength". Row­ley said he would not com­pro­mise his prin­ci­ples at the ex­pe­di­en­cy of win­ning an elec­tion. "I am not play­ing games. If I show loy­al­ty, it is to the par­ty and the coun­try." He said he and mem­bers of his par­ty did not al­ways see eye-to-eye. "We can dis­agree. For me, that is strength as long as we dis­agree re­spect­ful­ly," he added. He de­scribed the Ude­cott af­fair as a scan­dal nev­er to hap­pen in T&T again.

Row­ley said Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stood idly by as cor­rup­tion was swept un­der the car­pet in 2001 when he raised the is­sue with re­spect to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port ter­mi­nal build­ing in the then UNC Gov­ern­ment. He said he was kicked out of Par­lia­ment for two months when he re­fused to with­draw the al­le­ga­tion. He said it was on­ly when Glen­da More­an-Phillip be­came At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in 2001 that the mat­ter was raised with the re­sult that sev­er­al peo­ple were charged. He plead­ed with his sup­port­ers not to put the Op­po­si­tion in gov­ern­ment so the PNM's pro­grammes of the PNM could be con­tin­ued. Fitzger­ald Hinds, for­mer MP, launched an at­tack on can­di­dates from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, de­scrib­ing UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as the lit­tle sar­dine among the bunch. He de­scribed for­mer judge Her­bert Vol­ney as a vol­cano who erupt­ed in St Joseph last Mon­day night.

Hinds said Vol­ney had ac­cused the PNM of or­gan­is­ing the 25-odd plac­ard pro­test­ers in St Joseph. He said the PNM had noth­ing to do with the protest, say­ing it was or­ches­trat­ed by the fam­i­ly of Ja­son John­son, the young man who died af­ter be­ing in­volved in an al­ter­ca­tion with Brad Boyce. Hinds said he re­mained close to Row­ley dur­ing the years. He said: "I have nev­er seen a rag­ing bull, I have not seen a man of hate, I have not seen a man of dis­re­spect. "What I saw was a man who sin­gle-hand­ed­ly pulled down the UNC. He crushed the head of the UNC on the is­sue of cor­rup­tion. He took on Bas­deo Pan­day, Sadiq Baksh and Jear­lean John on the air­port, Gan­ga Singh on In­nCo­gen and De­sal­cott. "He took on Ude­cott and its chair­man. He took on all com­ers. He was fear­less." Hinds said Row­ley took on an en­tire In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, forc­ing the en­tire com­mis­sion to re­sign. He said the for­mer Min­is­ter of Hous­ing de­fend­ed him­self and the PNM on Lan­date and Cleaver Heights. For­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Bridgid An­nisette-George said Row­ley had been tried and test­ed but he had suc­ceed­ed and has dis­charged his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the con­stituents of Diego Mar­tin West.