NADALEEN SINGH

It was hand­shakes and smiles be­tween Diego Mar­tin West MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley and po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, Patrick Man­ning, yes­ter­day. The two ap­peared in the pub­lic do­main for the first time since Row­ley was fired as Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try, and the war of words be­tween them con­cern­ing the af­fairs of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott). Dur­ing the PNM's pre­sen­ta­tion of can­di­dates at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, as Row­ley's name was an­nounced to con­test the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy, the crowd of sup­port­ers screamed at the top of their voic­es, wav­ing flags and shout­ing his name. The dusty Wood­ford Square did not pre­vent them from cheer­ing Row­ley for about three min­utes.

Row­ley had been sched­uled on the par­ty's pro­gramme to speak in po­si­tion num­ber three–where St Joseph MP Kennedy Swarats­ingh spoke in­stead. In­ter­viewed af­ter the launch of can­di­dates, and asked why he did not speak, Row­ley said: "I have spo­ken in the last two elec­tions." The par­ty's pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Jer­ry Narace, al­so in­ter­viewed af­ter the launch, said: "It was a good show," but steered clear of com­ment­ing fur­ther on Row­ley not speak­ing. Most of the speak­ers ad­dress­ing the launch were new faces to pol­i­tics, such as: An­nwarie Ramkissoon who is con­test­ing Princes Town; Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West; and Lau­rel Leza­ma, Ari­ma.