Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's light-heart­ed re­ac­tion to the me­dia at a Hilton func­tion yes­ter­day prob­a­bly said it all. Af­ter blank­ing ques­tions about PNM MP Kei­th Row­ley's state­ments on Thurs­day night and then be­ing asked about his own feel­ings re­gard­ing the me­dia, Man­ning mouthed smooches at re­porters. (A Man­ning re­ac­tion hard­ly–if at all–ever giv­en to the me­dia.) On Wednes­day in Ari­ma, how­ev­er, Man­ning didn't ap­pear ready to puck­er up for any­one in the me­dia when he ac­cused news­pa­pers of com­ing to­geth­er against the PNM.

How­ev­er, Row­ley's plat­form de­but may have helped im­prove his leader's mood in the cur­rent keen elec­tion cam­paign. A bit. With the UK head­ing for a pos­si­ble coali­tion arrange­ment to avoid a hung Par­lia­ment, and with an op­po­si­tion coali­tion force rolling lo­cal­ly, the rul­ing PNM ap­peared yes­ter­day to be breath­ing a col­lec­tive sigh of re­lief at Row­ley's state­ments on Thurs­day. His plat­form ap­pear­ance–al­beit sans lead­er­ship–in his Diego Mar­tin seat telegraphed var­i­ous mes­sages, clear as well as cod­ed.

Row­ley found his way out of what could have been a com­pro­mis­ing sit­u­a­tion where his is­sues with Man­ning were con­cerned in the elec­tion sit­u­a­tion. (Thanks to a Car­ni­val Tues­day sailor suit which pro­vid­ed the ap­pro­pri­ate anal­o­gy.) Key in the sce­nario is the fact that the par­ty has been as­sured he is ac­tive­ly on board with his leader and par­ty in the elec­tion fight re­gard­less of the two years' of dif­fer­ences be­tween both in and out of the Par­lia­ment.

While his in­nu­en­does con­firmed his con­tin­u­ing con­cerns about Ude­cott and oth­er is­sues, his cur­rent cor­rup­tion fight will be against the Op­po­si­tion.

At this time. Row­ley made it clear there would be time enough lat­er on for "dry dock" in­ter­nal scruti­ny of the PNM and any "court mar­tial" ac­tion. PN­Mites be­lieve Row­ley's in­ter­ven­tion–which has come in the last weeks of the cam­paign–could turn the po­lit­i­cal tide un­der the PNM ship now fac­ing gust­ing Op­po­si­tion winds. Fol­low­ing the huge re­cep­tion Row­ley re­ceived by mem­bers at PNM's launch last week­end in Wood­ford Square, his po­si­tion as the faith­ful "sailor" will ob­vi­ous­ly shore up his po­lit­i­cal stocks fur­ther with PNM faith­ful. Which will un­doubt­ed­ly serve Row­ley in good stead for what­ev­er "dry dock­ing" of the PNM "ship" –or court mar­tial–that may lie ahead.

Row­ley, who stressed his loy­al­ty was to "par­ty and coun­try"(sic), end­ed not by call­ing for the po­lit­i­cal de­mo­li­tion of the Op­po­si­tion, but by call­ing for PN­Mites to "take con­trol of your par­ty." A call which he first launched in 2008 when he was fired by Man­ning from the Cab­i­net. Row­ley could well af­ford to be gen­er­ous. He may not have long to wait–16 days–to see where the PNM's "ship" will berth. Whether in or out of gov­ern­ment, and what this may bring. A PNM loss could give Row­ley larg­er po­lit­i­cal life if the lead­er­ship comes in­to ques­tion then, while a PNM vic­to­ry may–or may not–bring oth­er is­sues as to where he fits in.

Row­ley, Man­ning for To­ba­go meet­ings

Fol­low­ing Thurs­day's meet­ing, lead­ing roles for Row­ley in the To­ba­go cam­paign–where PNM is re­port­ed to be fal­ter­ing–will be firmed up to­day. Yes­ter­day To­ba­go PNM leader Orville Lon­don said Man­ning and Row­ley will de­liv­er the fea­ture ad­dress­es at two PNM meet­ings to­mor­row and on May 16 re­spec- tive­ly, where PNM's two To­ba­go can­di­dates will be launched. Lon­don con­firmed both men will not be on the same plat­form. Man­ning will head to­mor­row's meet­ing in Scar­bor­ough while Row­ley will lead the May 16 meet­ing sched­uled for Rox­bor­ough, To­ba­go East.

Row­ley's help may be vi­tal in view of the per­cep­tion that To­ba­go East may be mar­gin­al–this fol­low­ing the show­ing at the UNC/TOP cam­paign launch. Lon­don said, "We're com­fort­able but not com­pla­cent with To­ba­go West but To­ba­go East has al­ways been close. Our cam­paign start­ed three weeks ago and is­sues have gone be­yond the To­ba­go hos­pi­tal to lead­er­ship–To­bag­o­ni­ans haven't for­got­ten their ex­pe­ri­ences with the UNC Gov­ern­ment." Lon­don crit­i­cised UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's vis­it to for­mer Pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son. "It's a brazen at­tempt to use Mr Robin­son to le­git­imise the UNC/TOP al­liance. But we al­so met with Mr Robin­son two months ago on the same con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form is­sues. He's al­so met Dr Row­ley," Lon­don added.

UNC re­strate­gis­es

Af­ter field­ing–and back­ing down–on the ef­fects of is­sues con­cern­ing can­di­dates, in­clud­ing Her­bert Vol­ney, the Op­po­si­tion group­ing al­so had short-lived suc­cess this week with its bid to use the Man­ning/Row­ley is­sue among am­mu­ni­tion. How­ev­er, Row­ley's de­c­la­ra­tions may al­so fu­el Op­po­si­tion ac­cu­sa­tions about that rift and that Row­ley has been "si­lenced," or sold out on his Ude­cott con­cerns. UNC heads in­to next week–a piv­otal point in the cam­paign–dogged al­so by an al­leged "hoax," but still re­ceiv­ing mileage with re­ports of at­tacks on mem­bers and UNC leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar's meet­ing with Robin­son.

Ex­pand­ing on pol­i­cy an­nounce­ments this week, the cam­paign is ex­pect­ed to get in­to high­er gear next week, UNC of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day. The COP has al­so pro­duced sub­stan­tial poli­cies for the group­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly where jus­tice/se­cu­ri­ty, health and busi­ness are con­cerned. The Op­po­si­tion group is in­ten­si­fy­ing ef­forts in cer­tain key seats –apart from par­ties' safe seats–con­sid­ered to be ar­eas where the elec­tion may be won or lost. These in­clude Pointe-a-Pierre, Moru­ga/Table­land, San Juan, Ch­agua­nas East, St Joseph and To­ba­go East/West. Out­go­ing UNC MP Kelvin Ram­nath be­lieves the elec­tion could be won by one or two seats. UNC deputy leader Su­ruj Ram­bachan, busi­ly be­com­ing ac­quaint­ed yes­ter­day with the seat he is con­test­ing–Tabaquite–said: "No seat is safe for the PNM; we're tuned and are now fine-tun­ing."

Ari­ma lags?

For­mer Min­is­ter Ken Val­ley, who could not make it to Row­ley's meet­ing on Thurs­day, said en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly yes­ter­day:

"One thing I can say is that I'm sure I'm vot­ing for Kei­th."

PNM's Amery Browne, whose Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral con­stituen­cy bor­ders Row­ley's, ap­peared to be the on­ly PNM min­is­ter at Row­ley's meet­ing. Browne said yes­ter­day, "I was im­pressed with the size of the crowd. I think Dr Row­ley as ex­pect­ed re­mained strong in his al­le­giance to the PNM and the en­tire slate of can­di­dates. His speech has just de­liv­ered ad­di­tion­al mo­men­tum to the PNM's cam­paign that con­tin­ues to gain strength. "I'm not sur­prised that he wad­ed in­to Kam­la, Dook­er­an and oth­ers and I'm sure he will have more blows to de­liv­er on that po­si­tion. I'm sure he'll be speak­ing at oth­er meet­ings."

Browne added, "I quite agree with his mes­sage that when in bat­tle we all have to be unit­ed un­der our leader, which to me was the theme of his mes­sage, re­ject­ing those who an­tic­i­pat­ed a lead­er­ship strug­gle with­in the PNM." Browne de­clined re­ply on fur­ther queries about the Row­ley/ Man­ning as­pect. Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les was not at Row­ley's meet­ing. She had hoped to at­tend but did not since she was the fea­ture speak­er at PNM's La Brea cam­paign launch. Beck­les how­ev­er may have some work to do "at home" in Ari­ma where of­fi­cials of the Ari­ma con­stituen­cy sec­re­tari­at hint­ed that new can­di­date Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing was still hav­ing prob­lems.

While Beck­les had shep­herd­ed Leza­ma-Lee Sing through most of the process so far, she has not yet walked the con­stituen­cy with Leza­ma-Lee Sing, who is preg­nant and who has not yet start­ed lo­cal con­stituen­cy meet­ings in her area. The crowd at the FCB car park at PNM's re­gion­al meet­ing held in Ari­ma on Wednes­day–which chair­man Ralph Maraj had de­scribed as "hu­mon­gous"–was thick around the stage area east of the car park. But there were enough spaces be­hind the tele­vi­sion cam­eras' plat­form fur­ther down to walk around with­out be­ing squeezed. The meet­ing fea­tured sup­port­ers from var­i­ous con­stituen­cies. Mem­bers of the PNM's Ari­ma man­age­ment team in­ten­si­fied ef­forts this week at­tempt­ing to en­sure Leza­ma-Lee Singh main­tains as wide a mar­gin of vic­to­ry as Beck­les did in 2007 with over 8,000 votes.

Vas­ant, Dooks side by side

They had a bit­ter fight for St Au­gus­tine in the 2009 gen­er­al elec­tion, but yes­ter­day the win­ner of that fight (MP Vas­ant Bharath) and the los­er (COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an) were walk­ing to­geth­er in Tu­na­puna to bol­ster Dook­er­an's cam­paign there. COP of­fi­cials leav­ing the Tu­na­puna of­fice con­firmed Dook­er­an had asked Bharath to as­sist. Con­tact­ed on the walk­a­bout, Bharath, who ad­mit­ted to wear­ing a "Dook­er­an" but­ton, said:" I made a com­mit­ment to as­sist the can­di­dates and I have to ful­fil my word." Bharath has al­so toured with COP's Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is con­test­ing his seat and at­tend­ed fund-rais­ers for him

Bas: US strat­e­gy not work­ing

While Bharath is as­sist­ing coali­tion mem­bers, UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day is hard­ly do­ing the same. And the on­ly men­tion of his name along UNC's cam­paign trail was by Fuad Khan in St Joseph last week, when Khan told the crowd that Pan­day did not put his wife Oma in the Cab­i­net as Man­ning had with his spouse. Pan­day, who met with oth­er side­lined MPs and sen­a­tors on Mon­day to de­cide whether to con­test in­de­pen­dent­ly, did not do so even­tu­al­ly. "We de­cid­ed we don't need to meet any­more now. We'll see what hap­pens af­ter the elec­tion," he said. Pan­day, who turns 77 on the day af­ter the May 24 elec­tion, added: "While I have no in­ten­tion of re-en­ter­ing elec­toral pol­i­tics I want to con­tin­ue to serve peo­ple so I pro­pose es­tab­lish­ing a foun­da­tion for this pur­pose to try and deal with peo­ple's prob­lems."

Pan­day yes­ter­day flat­ly stat­ed that he be­lieved the al­le­ga­tion of a hit against Per­sad-Bisses­sar was a "hoax." "The ques­tion is why would one need to re­sort to that? And that would be on­ly be­cause one's pop­u­lar­i­ty has shift­ed or is wan­ing and one's me­dia im­age was dy­ing, so some sen­sa­tion­al­ism would be re­quired to as­sist it. If that is so, then that's ad­mis­sion that the force they put to­geth­er is get­ting weak­er in­stead of stronger. "They may have peaked too ear­ly, but it seems the PNM may be pick­ing up in some ar­eas. I had quite ex­pect­ed Dr Row­ley's points. Some of us who sat around dis­cussing what he might do had fig­ured he would say some­thing like this–that it was most im­por­tant that PNM should win."

Pan­day added, "The PNM is a cult. I was try­ing to get to the same lev­el with the UNC but it didn't turn out that way. PNM sup­port­ers may have a prob­lem with their priest so to speak but they are still go­ing to church so the PNM will vote PNM re­gard­less." Pan­day be­lieves the UNC's Amer­i­can han­dlers' styling–usu­al­ly ap­plied to a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion–is not in sync with the lo­cal elec­torate's per­spec­tive: "They feel peo­ple must fix their hair and teeth and speak with a twang to rein­vent them­selves and peo­ple will just ac­cept that. T&T vot­ers who are smart have larg­er pri­or­i­ties be­yond im­age be­cause we have many ba­sic is­sues in T&T that need fix­ing."

While Pan­day is out of the UNC's loop, MP Ram­nath, sim­i­lar­ly side­lined, said yes­ter­day he is help­ing some mem­bers with "pa­per­work."