Richard Lord

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Dr Kei­th Row­ley says he does not have con­trol over the "in­di­vid­ual in­put" of his Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.Row­ley was re­spond­ing to ques­tions about Fri­day's di­vid­ed vote among Op­po­si­tion MPs in Par­lia­ment on a pri­vate mo­tion brought by San Fer­nan­do East MP Patrick Man­ning.In an un­prece­dent­ed de­vel­op­ment three Op­po­si­tion MPs-Pa­tri­cia Mc In­tosh, Fitzger­ald Jef­frey and Amery Browne-vot­ed "yes" with Man­ning, while the oth­er five MPs ab­stained.Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc Don­ald said the par­ty had agreed to ab­stain from the vote.

Yes­ter­day, Row­ley said the di­vid­ed vote had not af­fect­ed the op­er­a­tions of the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader, which he said was dis­tinct from the par­ty."The Op­po­si­tion is func­tion­ing on full cylin­ders with re­spect to deal­ing with its gov­ern­men­tal and par­lia­men­tary re­spon­si­bil­i­ties."We make a dis­tinc­tion be­tween Op­po­si­tion and par­ty. Wher­ev­er we have par­ty is­sues we have Bal­isi­er House for that," Row­ley told re­porters dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at his of­fice on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day."So the work con­tin­ues unim­ped­ed," he added.

Asked if he was con­fi­dent the par­ty would not vote di­vid­ed in the fu­ture, Row­ley said he could not give that as­sur­ance."I am not one of those who pro­fess­es to have ac­cess to any crys­tal ball or any seer per­son. All I could say is that the PNM is a very strong and re­silient or­gan­i­sa­tion and to the ex­tent that these things oc­cur, we'll cross each hur­dle as we ap­proach them at full speed," he added.Asked to state what he in­tend­ed to do to pre­vent it from hap­pen­ing again, Dr Row­ley said:

"Well, as the leader I have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to try and avoid that hap­pen­ing but you must un­der­stand there is a cer­tain amount of in­di­vid­ual in­put over which I have no con­trol."He added: "Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment are mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in their own right. They have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the or­gan­i­sa­tion which put them in Par­lia­ment and how they treat with that are mat­ters that we'll ex­pe­ri­ence as we go along."He said that it was the norm for par­ty mem­bers to "hold the par­ty line" in Par­lia­ment.But Row­ley said he was "not for one minute de­spon­dent with any of this."We take these things in stride and we will con­tin­ue to en­sure the par­ty pro­vides the ser­vice the coun­try needs and ex­pects."