Richard Lord

Leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Dr Kei­th Row­ley came un­der at­tack from a new pres­sure group with­in his par­ty, as the group in­tends to chal­lenge Row­ley for lead­er­ship of the par­ty.To Pre­serve the Bal­isi­er (TPTB) co-or­di­na­tor Dr Bose Shar­ma told a meet­ing on Thurs­day night that Row­ley had side­lined par­ty mem­bers be­cause of their sup­port for for­mer leader Patrick Man­ning.Shar­ma was the PNM's de­feat­ed can­di­date for St Au­gus­tine in the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

About 100 peo­ple at­tend­ed the 90-minute meet­ing at Pin­to Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Ari­ma, in­clud­ing for­mer Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Pa­tri­cia Mejias.The PNM na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion is due by the end of March, but the date has not as yet been an­nounced by Row­ley. Shar­ma said the rules for the elec­tion is to be re­leased short­ly by PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford.

He did not name the can­di­date the TPTB was sup­port­ing against Row­ley for the par­ty's top po­si­tion, say­ing on­ly that the per­son will be an­nounced "very short­ly." It will be the first elec­tion un­der the one-man-one-vote sys­tem, and Shar­ma thanked Row­ley for en­sur­ing that the new sys­tem re­placed the for­mer del­e­gate sys­tem of vot­ing.

Shar­ma said the par­ty's first three lead­ers–Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers and Patrick Man­ning–all had a vi­sion for the PNM and Row­ley must now tell the par­ty what is his vi­sion for the coun­try's old­est po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion."Our leader is not talk­ing, he just shove every­body aside. It seems like we have a one-man show again. He is not com­ing and telling us what he will do. He is not com­ing to par­ty group meet­ings and sit­ting with par­ty group chair­men and so on."

Shar­ma said mem­bers can­not dis­sent from Row­ley in gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ings and he had been un­able to meet with Row­ley for the past two years.Shar­ma said he was dis­ap­point­ed in Row­ley for at­tack­ing him at a PNM meet­ing in D'Abadie on Tues­day night, say­ing Row­ley was en­gag­ing in "pol­i­tics of vengeance."Af­ter the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion, he said, Row­ley asked him to help set up a new in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy sys­tem at Bal­isi­er House.

Shar­ma said he got the best in­ter­na­tion­al IT ex­perts and sub­mit­ted a re­port to Row­ley. Shar­ma said the cost was put at US$350,000, but he told Row­ley peo­ple were will­ing to cov­er it and all that was re­quired was ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion for the ex­perts from abroad.But, he said, Row­ley nev­er got back to him and at­tacked him at the meet­ing, say­ing it was Shar­ma who want­ed a con­tract from the par­ty to sup­ply IT to the PNM."If Row­ley was called a rag­ing bull," he said, "I am his mata­dor. I will eat him raw."

Shar­ma al­so claimed Row­ley had pre­vent­ed an ini­tia­tive in the par­ty to sup­ply glass­es to poor peo­ple with­in the PNM.The TPTB was seek­ing to pre­serve the truth­ful­ness and en­er­gy of the par­ty, Shar­ma said, and un­der Row­ley's lead­er­ship the PNM was crum­bling.PNM mem­bers "know what lead­er­ship is," he warned, "so you can't fool us with your brand of lead­er­ship if it is not push­ing the PNM for­ward."He said Row­ley was just en­gag­ing in to­kenism by bring­ing in one or two In­di­ans to dec­o­rate it.