Gail Alexan­der

New po­lit­i­cal leader of Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Dr Kei­th Row­ley, pledg­ing to do things dif­fer­ent­ly, has urged mem­bers to "speak up" with­out fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion or spite. "This is an era of change...it's the 21st cen­tu­ry," Row­ley said yes­ter­day in his in­au­gur­al ad­dress af­ter be­ing in­stalled as leader of the 54-year-old par­ty. Row­ley be­came the PNM's fourth leader at a func­tion at City Hall, Port-of-Spain. Red-dressed PNM del­e­gates from var­i­ous con­stituen­cies packed the au­di­to­ri­um to wit­ness the event.

Ab­sent was pre­vi­ous leader, Patrick Man­ning, who led the par­ty since 1987. Row­ley, who joined PNM in 1974, spoke on the theme "Re­flec­tion to Resur­gence." He said: "As of this evening there is a new leader–not a new par­ty–who will do some things dif­fer­ent­ly, hope­ful­ly do every­thing bet­ter. That is what progress is all about."

He said the par­ty had tast­ed hu­mil­i­at­ing de­feat on May 24, but added that there was no shame in such de­feat. "The on­ly shame is if, as we stum­bled and fell, that we don't get up im­me­di­ate­ly, dust our­selves off and be ready for the next bat­tle." Adding that he had vis­it­ed and mo­bilised all but two seats re­cent­ly, Row­ley said: "The par­ty is alive, well and rar­ing to go, ready to take up bat­tle..." Say­ing the PNM was not the dom­i­nant force it used to be, Row­ley added that the par­ty would not ig­nore the past, sur­ren­der the fu­ture or spend time look­ing back­ward or point­ing fin­gers. He as­sured that the par­ty would do what was re­quired to make it more at­trac­tive. Row­ley not­ed that in 2007, PNM won 26 seats al­though 600,000 peo­ple did not vote for the par­ty.

Al­so on May 24, the par­ty lost ad­di­tion­al seats. "We have to en­sure we make our house so wel­com­ing that oth­ers who didn't see it as a place of po­lit­i­cal rest will do so now," he added. He said the PNM had an as­sign­ment to pro­vide T&T with al­ter­na­tive gov­ern­ment in the short­est time and would have to ex­am­ine it­self at all lev­els from head­quar­ters to con­stituen­cy. Say­ing he would en­cour­age PN­Mites to say their piece, Row­ley added: "If I have some­thing to tell you, I will tell you my­self. "I will not be afraid to tell you some­thing un­pleas­ant, if it is re­quired," he said. "I will en­cour­age you to be pro­duc­tive­ly crit­i­cal, as long as it is re­spect­ful and with­out mal­ice. "So you could nev­er say that un­der my lead­er­ship, Gen­er­al Coun­cil is a place where no­body talks."

"So if you send moo-moos to Gen­er­al Coun­cil, don't blame me. "If they don't re­port to coun­cil, don't blame me. We'll blame you. "We'll give you full reign in deep­en­ing democ­ra­cy of the par­ty." He said par­ty units would get lead­er­ship from Bal­isi­er House and would have the au­thor­i­ty to deal with their own af­fairs at con­stituen­cy lev­el. Row­ley al­so said the PNM's con­sti­tu­tion might have to be re­viewed to al­low the par­ty to bet­ter re­late to the pop­u­la­tion. He urged the par­ty to make space for new peo­ple who can help PNM pro­pel in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­course anew.

Blows for PP on smelter job loss

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment has not shown any em­pa­thy for those who lost jobs at the halt­ed alu­mini­um smelter or for the thou­sands who will lose jobs at that lo­ca­tion in the fu­ture, PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley said yes­ter­day. Row­ley de­fend­ed the smelter project which the PNM gov­ern­ment had start­ed. He said the PNM would take a po­si­tion on in­dus­tri­al­i­sa­tion if it had to en­sure the process sur­vives the "on­slaught of those who feel it is fash­ion­able to stop every­thing." "We wait to see what will hap­pen with the smelter...we know it's a cam­paign promise that it will be shut down," Row­ley said. "We ob­serve part of it was shut down and 150 jobs lost." He said the PNM sup­port­ed the project since it made sense and could im­prove the qual­i­ty of life. Row­ley said the PNM did not want to stay in Op­po­si­tion too long, "be­cause we know we can do it bet­ter."