Gail Alexan­der

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly six weeks be­fore the end of the Par­lia­men­tary term, Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley was last night sus­pend­ed from the Par­lia­ment's ser­vice for the rest of the term, via ma­jor­i­ty Gov­ern­ment vote.In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) MP Jack Warn­er was the lone voice vot­ing against the his­toric move, in the face of 24 Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) votes in favour of sus­pend­ing Row­ley.

The sit­u­a­tion has prompt­ed the PNM to call an emer­gency gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, at 3 pm to­day, the par­ty said last night.House Speak­er Wade Mark an­nounced the re­sults of the vote at 9.15 pm fol­low­ing the de­bate, which be­gan at 1.30 pm yes­ter­day on Gov­ern­ment's mo­tion of cen­sure against Row­ley – and the bid to sus­pend him over the pre­sen­ta­tion of e-mails which he had made in May 2013.

Two years af­ter the event, Mark last night said, "Diego Mar­tin West MP and leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, is sus­pend­ed from the ser­vice of this House for the re­main­der of the term, ap­proved by ma­jor­i­ty vote of the House."The e-mails al­leged that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and se­nior mem­bers of her Cab­i­net were in­volved in a mul­ti-pronged "con­spir­a­cy" on the Sec­tion 34 is­sue, in­clud­ing a plot to "harm" a re­porter and bug the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

The Par­lia­men­tary term ends on June 17.PP House leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, in con­clud­ing de­bate, de­clared,"This is a land­mark day...If you lie you must al­so say good­bye – he (Row­ley) is the mak­er of his own des­tiny."None of the 11 PNM MPs, who had been present ear­li­er when de­bate be­gan, were present for the vote, since they had walked out of the Par­lia­ment cham­ber just be­fore 4 pm af­ter PNM's Colm Im­bert had spo­ken against the mo­tion. Oth­er MPs Patrick Man­ning and Joanne Thomas were ab­sent from the ses­sion.

Mooni­lal, who ear­li­er pre­sent­ed a num­ber of opin­ions from lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts who had ad­judged the e-mails as fake, said the PP would take the is­sue to the pub­lic – from next week in Diego Mar­tin – and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must judge Row­ley. He said Row­ley would have to de­fend him­self.

"The truth will chase him all over ... PNM To­ba­go Leader Orville Lon­don had said that at the end of this is­sue there would be one man or woman left stand­ing and there is in­deed one woman left stand­ing tonight – but he's (Row­ley) not here, he left kick­ing and scream­ing as if he knew this would be the last time he'd be in Par­lia­ment," Mooni­lal added.Rather than de­fend Row­ley, he said PNM MPs had left the cham­ber and gone to the Par­lia­ment snack hall.

Mooni­lal re­mind­ed Warn­er that Row­ley's first act as Op­po­si­tion Leader was to call for the Prime Min­is­ter to re­move him (Warn­er) from Cab­i­net due his in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues with FI­FA and that the PM and the Cab­i­net had sup­port­ed Warn­er. He called on the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to con­sid­er what Row­ley would do as prime min­is­ter if peo­ple dis­agreed with his poli­cies and how he would han­dle crit­i­cism, which is a dai­ly part of a prime min­is­ter's life.

"Will he flee to the golf course? It's a poor sign of lead­er­ship - flee­ing. In leav­ing the Par­lia­ment, which was a dis­re­spect to the Par­lia­ment and the peo­ple who elect­ed MPs to de­bate is­sues in the Par­lia­ment, he stood by the e-mails," Mooni­lal said.

Re­port read in­to Hansard

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who spoke just be­fore de­bate end­ed, said Im­bert had not de­fend­ed Row­ley on the email is­sue. She out­lined Par­lia­ment reg­u­la­tions re­gard­ing the mo­tion, say­ing the PP had giv­en the PNM am­ple no­tice. She not­ed that for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Bas­deo Pan­day and UNC MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma had both been sus­pend­ed from the Par­lia­ment with­out pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness.

She said the Gov­ern­ment had shown there was no truth in the fake emails and de­tailed po­lice find­ings on some as­pects of the al­leged emails. This in­clud­ed a po­lice re­port that con­firmed there was no bug­ging de­vice in the DPP's of­fice.PP MP Tim Gopeesingh, in de­bate, called for Row­ley to re­sign as Op­po­si­tion leader and from the Diego Mar­tin West seat al­so. He warned the pub­lic that the PNM would put a flood of mis­in­for­ma­tion in­to the pub­lic do­main from now.

Ab­sent for the vote were PP MPs Win­ston Dook­er­an and Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan. The for­mer was ab­sent for the day and the lat­ter had at­tend­ed ear­li­er, but wasn't there for the vote.Par­lia­ment con­tin­ues to­mor­row at 1.30 pm.