Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley says he is not surprised by yesterday's "comprehensive" 11 to 3 defeat by the People's Partnership in the local government elections. Rowley, who led the PNM for the first time in an election, conceded defeat at a sparsely populated Balisier House, shortly after nine last night. "Tonight, the news is not as good as we would like it to be... As of now, we would have lost the local government elections quite comprehensively," he said. Rowley said the result was "not very surprising to us, given the fact that we view it as a bit of a continuation of an election that took place eight weeks ago.
"The local elections seemed to have gone very much the same way," he added. The anticipated PNM supporters stayed away from Balisier House last night. There were no vendors outside, there was no public address system or stage.
After the concession, former Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid arrived and embraced Rowley. Chief whip Marlene McDonald also arrived at Balisier House to lend her support to Rowley. The PNM retained Port-of-Spain, Point Fortin and San Juan/Laventille corporations, while the PP retain its five corporations and took six previously held by the PNM, including San Fernando. Rowley said the inadequate time the party had to prepare may have adversely affected the PNM at the polls yesterday. He said the Government's eight-week record was not sufficient for the PNM to convince the electorate of the need to reject it in the local government elections. He said the PNM was not despondent with the outcome of the elections. "We are quite pleased to have won three corporations...we would have been happier if we had won more," he added. Asked about the future of the PNM, after two major losses in just over two months, Rowley said the party had to undergo a comprehensive review. "We have to reorganise our party, we have to stay the course and we have to operate in a way that we can grow," he said. "The PNM has been suffering some contraction in recent time, so we have to try and reverse that."
Asked about the defeat in the Diego Martin region, Rowley said the writing was on the wall since the May 24 general election, when the PNM MPs in that region "struggled to hold those seats. "Given that we were (defeated) 29/12 eight weeks ago, it would have been quite unusual for us to have turned that around on a government that really hasn't done anything as yet," Rowley stressed. He said it was unreasonable for anyone to have expected a major turnaround for the 54-year-old party in the past three-week period that he had been at the helm. "I am good, but I am not that good," he said. Meanwhile, outgoing Mayor of Port-of-Spain Murchison Brown said he was not surprised by the results. He said the seats won by the PNM were the ones that were normally won by that party. The PP won Woodbrook and St James East in the Port-of-Spain City Corporation. He said he was willing to continue as mayor, if requested by the PNM.
