Ken Ali

One of the biggest po­lit­i­cal puz­zles of the day per­tains to Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Would Row­ley cam­paign na­tion­al­ly or would he con­cen­trate his ef­forts at Diego Mar­tin West?

And, since we are at it, let's ask some re­lat­ed ques­tions. What mes­sage would the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment–and Dr Row­ley, too–send if he does not mount a na­tion­al stage and ex­alt and de­fend his par­ty? If he does take to the na­tion­al plat­form, how would he ra­tio­nalise his ad­vo­ca­cy of PNM against his pre­vi­ous sting­ing de­nounce­ments. Let's ex­am­ine some choice Row­ley quotes. Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment last Oc­to­ber 19, he slammed: "To­day every school­child knows there is some­thing called Ude­cott and it smells to high heav­ens." He said that since Au­gust 2003, he had told Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning "that there was bid-rig­ging tak­ing place in Ude­cott." He said he had pro­vid­ed ev­i­dence in de­tail. "What does the Prime Min­is­ter do? Slan­der me and put up a de­fence for Calder Hart and his wife." Row­ley al­leged that what had tak­en place at Ude­cott "is ten times worse than what hap­pened with Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port." He drew a link be­tween Ude­cott and John­ny O'Hal­lo­ran, the lat­ter be­ing the cor­rup­tion bane of the PNM. Five days ear­li­er, again in Par­lia­ment, he chid­ed the Gov­ern­ment on the Petrotrin up­grade, which, he said, was cost­ing $9.3 bil­lion.

He in­toned: "We have to di­gest that in the con­text of 'de mon­ey done.' "We are now talk­ing about rais­ing rev­enue by tax­a­tion 'chirrup chirrup', house­hold by house­hold, land and build­ing tax­es, cig­a­rette and rum tax­es, as rev­enue-rais­ing mea­sures. Do not be fooled by that." At the height of the im­passe, there have been high-pro­file con­flicts, most no­tably with Dr Emi­ly Gaynor Dick-Forde and, to a less­er ex­tent, with long-time po­lit­i­cal bud­dy, Colm Im­bert. Man­ning, too, of­fered sev­er­al re­join­ders, at one time link­ing Row­ley with an al­leged sin­is­ter op­po­si­tion cam­paign to oust him and his ad­min­is­tra­tion. Row­ley du­ti­ful­ly de­nied the claim, and asked the Prime Min­is­ter what po­tion he was im­bib­ing. The ug­ly re­al­i­ty is that the Row­ley was a source of ma­jor ir­ri­ta­tion to his par­ty leader, who had fired him for al­leged un­be­com­ing be­hav­iour at a closed-door meet­ing.

There were re­ports that the PNM had briefly con­sid­ered dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against the par­lia­men­tary fire­brand. In­deed, promi­nent PN­Mites–ANR Robin­son and Karl Hud­son-Phillips–have part­ed ways with the par­ty for less­er dis­cord. But the PNM times have changed and Row­ley is not a politi­cian to sneeze at, any­way. Or­a­to­ry skills aside, he is tough-as-nails, re­source­ful and is seen by some as the ide­al fig­ure to take the PNM ba­ton for­ward. That brings us back to our orig­i­nal ques­tions. Would there be rap­proche­ment be­tween Man­ning and Row­ley for the larg­er par­ty good in what is shap­ing up to be a close elec­tion bat­tle? If they do kiss and make up, would their re­spec­tive cred­i­bil­i­ty be sul­lied? Do they still share com­mon ground on gov­er­nance? The an­swers would come be­fore long.

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