Gail Alexan­der

Diego Mar­tin East MP Colm Im­bert says his eth­nic­i­ty will not be a fac­tor in his quest to be­come the Op­po­si­tion Leader. He said he would be seek­ing the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader in the face of a sug­ges­tion by PNM's Gen­er­al Coun­cil for par­ty MPs to sup­port Kei­th Row­ley as Op­po­si­tion Leader. Im­bert al­so said yes­ter­day that he was se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing of­fer­ing him­self for the post of PNM po­lit­i­cal leader which would be filled by a spe­cial PNM con­ven­tion on June 27.

Asked about the chances a white Trinida­di­an would have to be­come Op­po­si­tion Leader or po­lit­i­cal leader, in the black-based Afro-cen­tric PNM, Im­bert said: "I joined PNM in 1987...I was em­braced with open arms. I nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced any hos­til­i­ty and was al­so made to feel at home. "My race has nev­er been a fac­tor in the PNM and that's one of the rea­sons I re­mained so long," he said. "Once mem­bers be­lieve you are a true PNM sol­dier, they em­brace you no mat­ter where you come from." Im­bert said he ob­ject­ed to the idea that "some­body could be ap­point­ed leader of a par­ty by ac­cla­ma­tion and could just walk in­to the post." He added: "Our par­ty is not like that."

Im­bert said he was se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing the post of po­lit­i­cal leader. "I'll seek ad­vice on it and speak to a lot of promi­nent peo­ple and se­nior states­men on the best thing for me and the par­ty at this time," he said. At a PNM Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing on Thurs­day night, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning re­signed as po­lit­i­cal leader. PNM To­ba­go leader Orville Lon­don rec­om­mend­ed Row­ley as Op­po­si­tion Leader. Tina Gron­lund-Nunez, chair­man of Man­ning's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy, sec­ond­ed the mo­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Gron­lund-Nunez said Man­ning was clear in his ear­li­er state­ment to the coun­cil that he would sup­port any de­ci­sion the coun­cil made on the is­sue. "That's why I sec­ond­ed the mo­tion," she added. Gron­lund-Nunez said it was very sad what sub­se­quent­ly took place when Man­ning was hound­ed out of the com­pound by Row­ley's sup­port­ers. Man­ning, who had come to the coun­cil with a res­ig­na­tion let­ter in hand–and de­liv­ered it to the coun­cil–was hound­ed out of the com­pound by sup­port­ers of Row­ley when his ve­hi­cle was be­ing dri­ven out of Bal­isi­er House.

The PN­Mites who had come by maxi taxis to sup­port Row­ley shout­ed for Man­ning to go. Ri­ot po­lice had to be called out when the Row­ley sup­port­ers–who came from East-West Cor­ri­dor ar­eas and Cou­va South–put on an ag­i­tat­ed dis­play, den­i­grat­ing Man­ning, call­ing for Row­ley and ver­bal­ly at­tack­ing mem­bers of the me­dia. Yes­ter­day, Im­bert who dis­tanced him­self from the dis­play said he was of­fer­ing him­self as Op­po­si­tion Leader since he felt he was suit­ably qual­i­fied. "I've been an elect­ed MP for al­most 19 years, a cab­i­net min­is­ter for over 12 years, and held dif­fer­ent port­fo­lios from Health and Works to Ed­u­ca­tion and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment," he said. "I was Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness for two and a half years with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for all PNM MPs and con­duct of Par­lia­ment–no one can pos­si­bly think I'm weak."

Im­bert said he was re­spon­si­ble for a num­ber of pro­grammes from GATE, CDAP and UTT to wa­ter taxis, the To­ba­go fer­ry, new bus­es and oth­ers in­no­va­tions. Asked about his near loss to the UNC in Mon­day's elec­tion, Im­bert said he had learned that the UNC had tar­get­ed him par­tic­u­lar­ly and had wooed dis­af­fect­ed PNM vot­ers and those who tra­di­tion­al­ly did not vote. "It was ob­vi­ous it was not in the best in­ter­est of a lot of peo­ple that I not be in the Par­lia­ment as I am a thorn in the side of many–not just the UNC, but oth­er peo­ple in the sys­tem, so I would not be avail­able to be an al­ter­na­tive for the (PNM) lead­er­ship," he said. Im­bert said any Op­po­si­tion Leader from hence­forth would ex­ist on­ly un­til June 27 when who­ev­er is elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be­come Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so.

Mixed views from MPs

Yes­ter­day, var­i­ous oth­er PNM MPs ex­pressed mixed views on the Gen­er­al Coun­cil's rec­om­men­da­tion for MP Kei­th Row­ley to be Op­po­si­tion Leader un­til June 27. Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Amery Browne: "I will ab­solute­ly speak to both Mr Row­ley and Mr Im­bert. I'll be seek­ing what's in the best in­ter­est of the par­ty and coun­try and in­form my de­ci­sion on this ba­sis.

"By the way, I was nev­er up for po­lit­i­cal leader. That al­le­ga­tion was mis­chief by some me­dia."

Laven­tille West MP Nile­ung Hy­po­lite: "We have two ex­pe­ri­enced per­sons in the Low­er House in the per­sons of Mr Row­ley and Mr Im­bert and I would like to hear from both par­ties as to why they be­lieve they can move PNM for­ward. The Gen­er­al Coun­cil can­not make a de­ci­sion, it is up to the MPs to de­cide. "So it's on­ly fair MPs hear from those who want to put them­selves for­ward for the post. Cer­tain of us will be speak­ing with them and I'm sure that it should be set­tled by to­day (Fri­day) and the PNM will re­brand and re­build." Pt Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon: "In my view, I must take deep­er view of this sit­u­a­tion. It seems there is an ex­ten­sion of the bat­tle go­ing on.

"How­ev­er, there are se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tions. I will not dis­miss Mr Row­ley as a can­di­date He is far more ex­pe­ri­enced than oth­ers, but at the same time, I'd like to speak to both him and Mr Im­bert on the best sit­u­a­tion to take us back to Gov­ern­ment. "The dis­play we saw at Bal­isi­er House by the crowd was dis­heart­en­ing. Mr Man­ning is an ex­em­plary states­man and vi­sion­ary and has left a great lega­cy." La Brea MP Fitzger­ald Jef­fery: "If the Gen­er­al Coun­cil made a rec­om­men­da­tion, I think that's the way to go. I will sup­port Mr Row­ley. It's not a per­son­al thing, but I'll sup­port what the ground troops want.

"But I al­so don't think that the treat­ment met­ed out to Mr Man­ning by the crowd on Thurs­day was fair for some­one who has made such a con­tri­bu­tion. I'm not for this mob rule thing." St Ann's East MP Joanne Thomas: "I have in my mind who I'd want to sup­port, but I'd want to meet both Mr Row­ley and Mr Im­bert and let them show us what they have to of­fer. "Let's give every­body a chance to talk and tell us what they have ahead of the oth­er nom­i­nee." Those who did not re­turn calls or were not avail­able were Port-of-Spain North MP Pat Mac In­tosh–whose can­di­da­cy Row­ley had en­dorsed two weeks ago–and MPs Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, Don­na Cox and Ali­cia Hospedales.