Shal­iza Has­sanali

In an un­ex­pect­ed move a week ago, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira threw her hat in­to the po­lit­i­cal ring to chal­lenge Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader and the coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, for the lead­er­ship post in the par­ty’s De­cem­ber 4 in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Her de­ci­sion to vie for the top po­si­tion has caused some con­cerns with her fam­i­ly, but Nunez-Tesheira, who de­scribed her­self as a po­lit­i­cal an­i­mal, ad­mit­ted that the PNM de­serves a breath of fresh air and the coun­try yearns for bet­ter gov­er­nance giv­en that PM Row­ley is "out of touch" and dis­plays a harsh, in­sen­si­tive and crude lead­er­ship style. She said he has failed to de­liv­er and stay true to the tenets and ba­sic prin­ci­ples of the PNM.

Nunez-Tesheira in an in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian last week said thou­sands of peo­ple have been prais­ing her for hav­ing the courage to tack­le Row­ley head-on. "They not say­ing I win­ning, you know, but they are thank­ing me for stand­ing for­ward, hav­ing the courage, and do­ing this for T&T," she added.

In 2009 al­le­ga­tions of in­sid­er trad­ing were levied against Nunez-Tesheira, who was ac­cused by then-op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of with­draw­ing mon­ey from the Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank (CIB) af­ter re­ceiv­ing in­for­ma­tion that it was in fi­nan­cial trou­ble and was about to fall. Would this come back to haunt her as she gets ready to bat­tle for the lead­er­ship post?

Nunez-Tesheira has de­nied she was in­volved in in­sid­er trad­ing and plead­ed with any­one who has ev­i­dence that she knew the bank was go­ing to liq­ui­date and with­drew her mon­ey as a re­sult, to re­port it to the me­dia.

Q: What do you think will give you the edge over Dr Row­ley?

A: I would not phrase it as an edge. What you are al­lud­ing to is my suit­abil­i­ty over the cur­rent leader of the par­ty. We can­not sep­a­rate, un­for­tu­nate­ly, his (Row­ley's) per­for­mance as the leader of the coun­try from that of the lead­er­ship of the par­ty. And if we have to use that as a lit­mus test, I am quite con­fi­dent that he has failed to de­liv­er, he has failed to stay true to the tenets and ba­sic prin­ci­ples of the PNM. We def­i­nite­ly need a change in lead­er­ship.

What were some of the tough de­ci­sions you had to make be­fore you tossed your hat in­to the po­lit­i­cal ring?

 I do think the ar­ti­cles (re­lat­ing to the so­cio-eco­nom­ic cli­mate) that I wrote over a pe­ri­od of time had an im­pact on my de­ci­sion. The more I did re­search, the more I recog­nised there was a need for me to not be the arm­chair crit­ic but to step for­ward. All my fam­i­ly knows that I am a po­lit­i­cal an­i­mal. Some­times it an­noys them. But they all sup­port me. My chil­dren are my great­est con­cern. They are con­cerned be­cause of the crim­i­nal cli­mate in T&T. They fear for my life, which is re­al­ly alarm­ing, and that should be a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion for them and oth­er mem­bers of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. To think that we have reached that point in Trinidad, where peo­ple have to be told that, it tells you there is a need for change…we need a breath of fresh air. Peo­ple have been thank­ing me for do­ing this. They not say­ing I win­ning, you know, but they are thank­ing me for stand­ing for­ward, hav­ing the courage, and do­ing this for T&T.

What is your chil­dren's view on you con­test­ing the PNM lead­er­ship, did they try to dis­suade you?

My chil­dren al­ways said to me, 'Mum­my, we know you have the best in­ter­est of the coun­try.' They be­lieve that I am...based on what they could see be­cause I have no co­coa in the sun. They know what I stand for and who I am. But as my chil­dren, their con­cern is for my per­son­al safe­ty. They do wor­ry about that. Oth­er than that con­cern, they sup­port me.

Giv­en the coun­try's crime sit­u­a­tion, are you fear­ful for your life?

Well, oth­er peo­ple seem to be fear­ful for my life. From that point of view, I sup­pose it would be fool­hardy on my part with the crime lev­el. And what every­one seems to know, whether from the in­side or what­ev­er, I would be fool­hardy not to take that in­to ac­count.

Karen Nunez-Tesheira in St Ann’s on Thursday.

ROBERTO CODALLO

Do you think the coun­try is bet­ter off un­der this ad­min­is­tra­tion?

I want to make it clear that I nev­er strayed from the PNM. I be­lieve in what the PNM stands for.

I would an­swer you by say­ing that the record speaks for it­self. Every time they (the gov­ern­ment) say some­thing to you, what do you be­lieve? What has been the most dis­ap­point­ing part of his (Row­ley's) lead­er­ship is al­most as if he has no re­spect for women and him­self. He has no self-con­straint. You are the Gov­ern­ment. The peo­ple vot­ed you in with their fin­gers. They did not ex­pect that you would take this in­sen­si­tive ap­proach to them and ap­pear to be at the beck and call of the wealthy. The Gov­ern­ment can­not put in place on­ly poli­cies and pro­ce­dures that on­ly the wealthy can ben­e­fit from.

What are the PNM's biggest mis­takes since as­sum­ing of­fice?

A dis­con­nect and al­most con­tempt for the very peo­ple who de­pend on them for as­sis­tance. And hold­ing on to the use of sub­si­dies as a panacea which on­ly makes them two things–stay in a cy­cle of pover­ty and have lit­tle or no self-worth and make them open to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the un­der­ground econ­o­my. This Gov­ern­ment in its eighth year has shown it does not im­ple­ment, and it has a leader that makes state­ments that are in­sen­si­tive, harsh, crude, and out of touch.

How do you in­tend to sway the PNM mem­ber­ship to vote for you?

They must un­der­stand that I have the same love for the PNM as they do. They have to re­call that this cur­rent leader (Row­ley) went up against his own prime min­is­ter and po­lit­i­cal leader (Patrick Man­ning) when he was in his Cab­i­net and even­tu­al­ly as a back­bencher. Did he do that just be­cause he was con­cerned about him­self? I can't an­swer that ques­tion. What I could tell the pub­lic is they have not found any­thing against me. I am at­tached to no one. I take noth­ing from any­one. It is not be­ing dis­loy­al. I look at it as tak­ing a brave and loy­al step to en­sure that what the PNM stands for is not go­ing to be de­ter­mined by one per­son.

 There are as­cend­ing voic­es re­gard­ing how the coun­try is be­ing man­aged. Do you think that Row­ley is good lead­er­ship ma­te­r­i­al?

The ques­tion you are ask­ing, you gave the facts. The peo­ple feel ne­glect­ed be­cause they can­not come out of pover­ty. Those in the par­ty who are an­gry that I am do­ing this, then they have to un­der­stand that I am do­ing it for the love of the coun­try. If they are hon­est with them­selves, they would look, in my view, at the be­tray­al of this Gov­ern­ment to them in not do­ing any­thing to make them en­tre­pre­neurs and giv­ing them the op­por­tu­ni­ties that were giv­en to them through the late Dr Er­ic Williams.

Are you con­test­ing this elec­tion alone or will you present a slate?

I am not chal­leng­ing any oth­er po­si­tion. And there­fore, it is on­ly one po­si­tion that I am in­ter­est­ed in be­cause we know the im­por­tance of lead­er­ship. I have a team work­ing with me and they con­vinced me to do it. My cred­i­bil­i­ty is of crit­i­cal im­por­tance to me. And if we are go­ing to have any fund­ing, I don't want any fund­ing from sources that I have my con­cerns about be­cause I do not want at any time for it to be said with any lev­el of truth that she was just like the rest of them, talk­ing the talk but not walk­ing the walk. A leader is sup­posed to em­brace every­one. When we look at it, it shows we are deal­ing with in­equal­i­ty which is caus­ing dis­af­fec­tion and hope­less­ness even among the rank and file of the PNM who are afraid to say any­thing. They are afraid of los­ing their chair­man­ship, po­si­tions on boards, con­tracts, and be­ing re­moved as a sen­a­tor, cab­i­net mem­ber, and even a back­bencher. But this Prime Min­is­ter has an im­pact on peo­ple, the fear is even more en­trenched.

Who are the mem­bers of this team?

I don't want to re­veal it be­cause they did not give me the au­thor­i­ty to do that. My team is work­ing in a way that is strate­gic and is well-ex­pe­ri­enced in pol­i­tics and sup­port­ing par­ties. I do not have neo­phytes sup­port­ing me.

 So there will be no team con­test­ing with Karen Nunez-Tesheira in the elec­tions?

No. I am laser fo­cused. To me, that is what I am go­ing for, lead­er­ship.

Are you brac­ing for the mud­sling­ing?

 I would like to see what the mud­sling­ing would be. It will be very in­ter­est­ing to see. All I could say is the on­ly thing they have been able to come up with in the last 12 years is CIB and I have asked the Prime Min­is­ter time and time again to re­lease the Col­man Com­mis­sion of In­quiry re­port in­to Cli­co and CL Fi­nan­cial and he did not do it. You can't see it right to clear my name. That would help peo­ple to come to their own con­clu­sion with­out the bac­cha­na­lia. Even if you don't want to re­lease the en­tire re­port just say what it stat­ed about me that was neg­a­tive. If any­one had an in­cen­tive to de­stroy me they would have. They had 12 long years to do it. And the on­ly rea­son that no one has come for­ward, al­though there were for­mer CEOs, chair­men etcetera of CIB who did not ben­e­fit from the Gov­ern­ment's tax­pay­er pay­out for third par­ties, they have every mo­ti­va­tion to ex­pose me for be­ing a liar and a hyp­ocrite.

In 2009 al­le­ga­tions of in­sid­er trad­ing were levied against you, do you think this may come back to haunt you now?

What they want to say is that some­body...and it would have to be some­body high up in CIB who would have whis­pered to me or some­one who knew me to tell me that the com­pa­ny is about to fall and there is go­ing to be a run on the com­pa­ny, take out your mon­ey. By the way, I had the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion apol­o­gised to me af­ter we asked what crime I had com­mit­ted, and even­tu­al­ly when we said we go­ing for ju­di­cial re­view, sud­den­ly they had a mo­ment of epiphany and dropped it. I took out my own mon­ey on a fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­ny. My hus­band had been de­ceased for over three years. The way they treat­ed him so bad­ly I want­ed noth­ing to do with them. So, I was dis­af­fect­ed by Cli­co and CL Fi­nan­cial. When it came to the end of the year, re­mem­ber it was the glob­al fi­nan­cial cri­sis, it just dawned on me why you leav­ing your mon­ey in­side of there. So, the whole idea of Cli­co and their whole ques­tion­able way of deal­ing was some­thing that was known for at least ten years, it just fell on my lap. Why weren't all the boards of Re­pub­lic Bank, CIB, CL Fi­nan­cial, In­spec­tor of Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions and Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank un­aware that the com­pa­ny was now go­ing in­to a po­si­tion where there was go­ing to be a run on the com­pa­ny? Why they did not know? I am plead­ing with any mem­ber of any gov­ern­ment that could say that they sent a mes­sage to me, how­ev­er it came to me, whether di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, to tell me that CIB was about to go in­to liq­ui­da­tion or about to have a run on the com­pa­ny and take out the mon­ey, don't go to the po­lice, come to the me­dia.

How many Cab­i­net min­is­ters ap­proached you to con­test the lead­er­ship of the par­ty? Is there a break­away fac­tion with­in the PNM that wants to oust Row­ley?

No min­is­ters ap­proached and I would be very sur­prised if they did. I have de­lib­er­ate­ly kept away or said any­thing to them be­cause I do not want to com­pro­mise them in any way. And based on my as­sess­ment of Dr Row­ley, I feel they will be pun­ished. I am pret­ty con­fi­dent there are quite a few of them who would love to see him out. If he be­haves how he be­haves in pub­lic, I could on­ly imag­ine what goes on in that Cab­i­net.

So the sup­port you have been re­ceiv­ing is out­side of Cab­i­net?

 If I were in the Cab­i­net, I would not send What­sApp mes­sages, make calls, or be seen talk­ing to me be­cause I know from be­ing in the for­mer cab­i­net that when per­sons were seen to be close to cer­tain peo­ple, they paid a price.

In 2015, you won quite pos­si­bly the high­est-ever pay­out in a med­ical neg­li­gence case in T&T’s his­to­ry, do you think the PNM grass­roots would see you as a hum­ble per­son and a cham­pi­on of the poor and op­pressed?

The mat­ter has not yet been set­tled. It has gone to the Privy Coun­cil. I can't say too much be­cause it is sub ju­dice. But what I have gone through with that I would wish it on no one. I just want to say that the man I mar­ried, his name is Rus­sel Tesheira. Where did I meet him? On Nel­son Street. Why did I mar­ry him? Be­cause I see be­yond the cir­cum­stances in which he was liv­ing to the man he was. He had done so much in foot­ball and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice which I ad­mired tremen­dous­ly.

If you are suc­cess­ful in the up­com­ing elec­tions how would you im­prove the PNM and will there be a clean-up ex­er­cise in the par­ty?

 I am not go­ing down that road. There would be no clean-up ex­er­cise. I would have to ob­serve, make an as­sess­ment and then make de­ci­sions. I am there to hope­ful­ly in­spire con­fi­dence in my lead­er­ship if I were to win.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley at the opening of the Mahaica Sports Complex in Point Fortin yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

PM Row­ley gives tongue-in-cheek re­sponse about chal­lengers: 'It's a life-and-death sit­u­a­tion'

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has de­clined to com­ment on the de­ci­sion by Karen Nunez- Teshiera to con­test the De­cem­ber 4 in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Jour­nal­ists re­quest­ed a com­ment from Dr Row­ley as he opened the Ma­haica Oval in Point Fortin, yes­ter­day, but be­fore tak­ing ques­tions he in­di­cat­ed he will on­ly be re­spond­ing to mat­ters per­tain­ing to sports.

When asked when he in­tend­ed to speak about his chal­lengers, Dr Row­ley re­spond­ed with a smile: "You have a prob­lem with the Eng­lish lan­guage, eh?"

In a tongue-in-cheek re­sponse, he added, "That is not a sport. That is a life-and-death sit­u­a­tion." When asked if he has filed, he walked away.

Nunez-Tesheira, in an in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian, said T&T yearns for bet­ter gov­er­nance. She said Dr Row­ley was "out of touch" and dis­plays a harsh, in­sen­si­tive and crude lead­er­ship style.–RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA