Fran­cis Joseph

In­cum­bent Diego Mar­tin West MP Dr Kei­th Row­ley last night called on the sup­port­ers of the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to en­sure that they come out to vote in the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion or the par­ty may lose the elec­tion.

Speak­ing be­fore a crowd in Di­a­mond Vale in his con­stituen­cy, Row­ley said: "This is a very se­ri­ous ex­cerise. My first con­cern is that the PNM might lose. My oth­er con­cern is that the next side might win." He said peo­ple were say­ing that the at­mos­phere now was like 1986 gen­er­al elec­tion. Then, the NAR won 33 seats and the PNM three. But he told PNM faith­ful not to make the mis­take and vote for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship who, he said, would not be able to gov­ern the coun­try. A very se­ri­ous Row­ley mount­ed a PNM plat­form in Diego Mar­tin last night, fi­nal­ly shar­ing the stage with his po­lit­i­cal leader and Prime Min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning. It was the first time for the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion that Row­ley spoke on a plat­form with Man­ning. Last night, PNM sup­port­ers from all over the coun­try de­scend­ed on Di­a­mond Vale, caus­ing a traf­fic jam around the Wendy Fitzwilliam Boule­vard. Many were wait­ing to see if, first­ly, Row­ley would ap­pear, and sec­ond­ly, if he would speak. He got a rous­ing re­cep­tion when he ar­rived at 7.32 pm. Min­utes lat­er, Man­ning ar­rived and shook the hands of the front­line speak­ers, in­clud­ing Row­ley. For the en­tire night, Row­ley sat at the head ta­ble and of­fered no smile. He spoke briefly with�Dr Amery Browne, the PNM Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral can­di­date.

Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Hazel Man­ning sat be­tween Row­ley and her hus­band. Man­ning re­mained stone­faced while Row­ley was speak­ing, but the peo­ple on the stage were glued to the Diego Mar­tin West can­di­date. Row­ley, who had at­tacked the Gov­ern­ment for the way it han­dled al­le­ga­tions against the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (Ude­cott), men­tioned Ude­cott once in his 22-minute speech. He al­so men­tioned the cor­rup­tion at Pi­ar­co Air­port, just once. In his turn at the podi­um, Row­ley stunned the crowd when he raised two con­cerns. He said the May 24 elec­tion was a very se­ri­ous ex­er­cise. His first con­cern was the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the PNM could lose next Mon­day, and sec­ond­ly, that the next side might win. Row­ley said that the PNM�was not per­fect. Say­ing he had is­sues with the lead­er­ship of the par­ty, Row­ley launched an at­tack on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion. He stuck to the is­sue of com­pe­tence, say­ing there may well be peo­ple who are more com­pe­tent than the 41 can­di­dates which the PNM put up in the elec­tions. He said these peo­ple did not come for­ward. But he made it quite clear that the can­di­dates on the op­pos­ing side were not com­pe­tent to run T&T. �Row­ley said next Mon­day's elec­tion was re­al­ly about vot­ing to pro­tect the peo­ple's in­ter­est in hous­ing, health, among oth­er things. He said the PNM was about PNM val­ues and poli­cies and not about per­son­al­i­ties.

Mean­while, speak­ing af­ter Row­ley, Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning an­nounced that he re­ceived no­ti­fi­ca­tion this week from the state's lawyers in the US that T&T is about to re­ceive a patent for the G-Pan. "This means that no­body could pro­duce the G-Pan, both here or abroad, with­out the Gov­ern­ment re­ceiv­ing roy­al­ties," the Prime Min­is­ter said. He al­so spoke about the de­vel­op­ment of a new in­dus­try out of the man­u­fac­tur­ing of pans for a glob­al mar­ket.