Gail Alexan­der

Diego Mar­tin West MP Kei­th Row­ley has been rec­om­mend­ed as Op­po­si­tion Leader by the PNM's Gen­er­al Coun­cil, af­ter yes­ter­day's res­ig­na­tion of PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Patrick Man­ning. Once Row­ley gets the req­ui­site sev­en-plus votes of sup­port from PNM MPs, he would serve as Op­po­si­tion Leader un­til June 27, when PNM will hold a spe­cial con­ven­tion to elect a new po­lit­i­cal leader. For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning drove out of Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day af­ter re­sign­ing, hound­ed by a mob of shout­ing sup­port­ers of Row­ley who put on a an­gry dis­play blam­ing Man­ning–and the me­dia–for the PNM's elec­tion de­feat on Mon­day.

Po­lice, in­clud­ing Guard and Emer­gency Branch ri­ot of­fi­cers, were called in af­ter an­gry sup­port­ers of Row­ley's from Diego Mar­tin West, Cou­va South and oth­er ar­eas shout­ed down the walls at Bal­isi­er House where PNM's Gen­er­al Coun­cil met to dis­cuss Man­ning's de­ci­sion. Un­be­knownst to the an­gry mob, Man­ning had come to the coun­cil meet­ing armed with his res­ig­na­tion let­ter which he pre­sent­ed and which PNM chair­man Con­rad Enill lat­er re­vealed to the me­dia. When Man­ning ar­rived at 4.55 pm, he was giv­en a hos­tile re­cep­tion by a small group of sup­port­ers wear­ing "Row­ley" jer­seys who ar­rived by maxi-taxi. Sim­i­lar PN­Mites ar­rived through­out the evening, be­com­ing loud­er in de­cry­ing the for­mer prime min­is­ter. Row­ley was cheered loud­ly when he ar­rived.

PN­Mites came on the scene bear­ing plac­ards pro­claim­ing: "Man­ning–Please Go Home," "Step Down," "Do like Brown and Step Down Now," "Please Go Home so we can heal" and "The Peo­ple have spo­ken–please lis­ten and leave." Mel­ba Box­hill, one of the most vo­cal pro­test­ers shout­ed: "Is he have we here! He shoul­da re­sign since Mon­day... we out of a job! Row­ley is the man!" PN­Mite David Taitt be­gan us­ing a mi­cro­phone to call for Man­ning to go. Taitt said: "We are the voice of the ground troops! We have to re­move the rub­ble be­fore we re­build who­ev­er the rub­ble is!" Row­ley's cam­paign man­ag­er, Jacquie Lazarus, in a long state­ment, al­so said Man­ning should have re­signed. Po­lice, called in at 5.30 pm, met with Man­ning in a pri­vate of­fice. The of­fi­cers lat­er spoke to Taitt.

Short­ly af­ter around 5.45 pm, Man­ning, seat­ed in the back of his sil­ver Pra­do, was dri­ven out of the com­pound with the an­gry mob shout­ing him out of the dri­ve­way. PNM's coun­cil meet­ing con­tin­ued in Man­ning's ab­sence. The mob which had filled the Bal­isi­er House court­yard lat­er turned their at­ten­tion to the me­dia present. Al­so present in the crowd were sup­port­ers of PNM MP Colm Im­bert who sang hymns and com­plained to the T&T Guardian about the "un­civilised be­hav­iour" (sic) of the crowd." At 6.50 pm, when the meet­ing end­ed, Row­ley emerged–to great cheers–to tell the crowd the coun­cil had rec­om­mend­ed that he be Op­po­si­tion Leader and he had ac­cept­ed and would dis­charge the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the best of his abil­i­ty.

At a sub­se­quent news con­fer­ence, PNM chair­man Enill read Man­ning's May 27 let­ter to the Coun­cil. This stat­ed: "The gen­er­al elec­tion of May 24 did not re­sult in vic­to­ry for the PNM. As po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty, I ac­cept full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for this re­sult. "I am of the view the par­ty in these cir­cum­stances should pro­ceed to elect a new po­lit­i­cal leader in the short­est pos­si­ble time and in ac­cor­dance with the PNM con­sti­tu­tion. "To fa­cil­i­tate this process I here­by re­sign the of­fice of po­lit­i­cal leader. May I al­so in­di­cate that if it is the par­ty's wish, I am pre­pared to stay on as po­lit­i­cal leader un­til a po­lit­i­cal leader is elect­ed at which time it will be my plea­sure to grace­ful­ly demit of­fice."

Man­ning, who was elect­ed PNM leader in Feb­ru­ary 1987 and who served for 23 years, as­sured he would ful­ly sup­port the new po­lit­i­cal leader who was cho­sen and would not op­er­ate in any man­ner to bring the PNM in­to dis­re­pute. Enill said that since the coun­cil ac­cept­ed Man­ning's res­ig­na­tion, the sit­u­a­tion trig­gered a va­can­cy and the PNM now had to move to spe­cial con­ven­tion on June 27 to elect a leader. He said the coun­cil rec­om­mend­ed to MPs that Row­ley be sup­port­ed as Op­po­si­tion Leader un­til the June 27 con­ven­tion, "at which time the po­lit­i­cal leader will have con­trol of that process."

Man­ning pledges sup­port for Row­ley

He not­ed that Par­lia­ment will be con­vened soon and de­ci­sions by an Op­po­si­tion Leader would have to be made, there­fore Row­ley was rec­om­mend­ed. Enill said the rec­om­men­da­tion was sec­ond­ed by the chair­man of Man­ning's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy. He said Man­ning had agreed to sign the let­ter of sup­port for Row­ley to be Op­po­si­tion Leader and PNM MPs would be en­cour­aged to fol­low this di­rec­tion. Enill said Man­ning gave the par­ty the op­tions and al­so as­sured that he would not in­ter­fere in the process. He said Man­ning's of­fer to stay on was not "turned down," but he had mere­ly giv­en the par­ty op­tions since he was un­aware of what the coun­cil would do.

Enill said Man­ning's mood yes­ter­day was one of dis­ap­point­ment. He said Man­ning had made it plain in Mon­day's ad­dress that he would have had to con­sid­er his po­si­tion in pol­i­tics af­ter the de­feat and would have stepped down. Enill ad­mit­ted the PNM should have done more work for the elec­tion and would in fu­ture move dif­fer­ent­ly and be more rel­e­vant. On the view that he and oth­er of­fi­cials should al­so re­sign, Enill agreed that if this was nec­es­sary af­ter the new leader was elect­ed, he would. Man­ning's res­ig­na­tion is the third oc­ca­sion the PNM has found it­self in these cir­cum­stances. The par­ty will to­day be­gin is­su­ing no­ti­fi­ca­tion to PNM units about the spe­cial con­ven­tion and a nom­i­na­tion sub­mis­sion date.