Yvonne Webb

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM Dr Kei­th Row­ley is a lit­tle rich­er from win­ning a bet that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar would not have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the lead­er­ship de­bate."I col­lect­ed my bet this morn­ing," he told sup­port­ers of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in Point Fortin on Mon­day night, hours af­ter the De­bates Com­mis­sion de­cid­ed to call off the de­bate due to the with­draw­al of Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

He said long be­fore the com­mis­sion's de­ci­sion, he placed a bet that there would be no lead­ers' de­bate, "be­cause Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar not de­bat­ing no­body in this coun­try."He said when he signed in to the de­bate and a meet­ing was be­ing planned for Point Fortin, his camp was con­cerned about him con­firm­ing he would be on the plat­form in the bor­ough in­stead of prepar­ing for the de­bate.

"From the very first day, I told them the PM of T&T would not sub­ject her­self to any de­bate. So said, so done. I could read that woman like a book, with one page," he added.He said he found it in­ter­est­ing that the PM, who had come to the de­fence of COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, her sub­sti­tute in the de­bate, was the same per­son who re­fused to meet with Ra­mad­har in spite of sev­er­al let­ters of re­quests over arrange­ments for the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

"She would not meet with him while he is a part of a coali­tion gov­ern­ment but want­i­ng to slip out of the de­bate, found Prakash had to be de­fend­ed," he added.He said her with­draw­al was an in­jus­tice to the en­tire coun­try which was look­ing for­ward to the de­bate among lead­ers of the main po­lit­i­cal par­ties which has put for­ward can­di­dates for the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

Row­ley said he was dis­ap­point­ed when he heard Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she nev­er com­mit­ted to par­tic­i­pate in any de­bate when all of the lead­ers had signed and were com­mit­ted to it.He said when the De­bates Com­mis­sion in­vit­ed the PNM to take part in a na­tion­al de­bate they com­mit­ted to it as did the oth­er par­ties.He added: "All of last week, all of this week, the coun­try was told and was led to be­lieve the Prime Min­is­ter was com­mit­ted and she was com­ing.

"I un­der­stand the same thing we signed and com­mit­ted to, they signed and com­mit­ted to and the PM now telling us she nev­er com­mit­ted to any de­bate?"This is not child's play. This is a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar un­der­tak­ing and the TTDC would have com­mit­ted sig­nif­i­cant mon­ey to putting on this de­bate for the pub­lic ben­e­fit."If in a mat­ter like this, the PM could be­have like that, how could you trust some­body like that with your af­fairs."

PNM Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds, who al­so spoke, said not on­ly was the UNC colour yel­low, "their bel­ly yel­low too," in ref­er­ence to the forced can­cel­la­tion of the de­bates.Row­ley al­so called on Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to break his si­lence on al­le­ga­tions by ILP leader Jack Warn­er about hous­es be­ing giv­en for sex­u­al favours.