Hamid Ghany

Af­ter mount­ing pub­lic and po­lit­i­cal pres­sure, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley made his first Cab­i­net reshuf­fle six months in­to of­fice with the dis­missal of Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald as Min­is­ter of Hous­ing.

It brought to an end an in­ter­nal PNM bat­tle that start­ed in 2014 when the Sun­day Guardian first ex­posed that forces in­side the PNM were lob­by­ing Dr Row­ley to pre­vent Mc­Don­ald from be­ing a can­di­date for the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The Sun­day Guardian sto­ry on De­cem­ber 14, 2014, by in­ves­tiga­tive re­porter Renu­ka Singh un­der the head­line IC PROBES MP MC DON­ALD stat­ed:

"Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald is un­der at­tack by a se­cret group named TnT Whistle­blow­er. The group, claim­ing to be sup­port­ive of the PNM, has emailed par­ty leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, threat­en­ing to go pub­lic with a se­ries of al­le­ga­tions against Mc­Don­ald. The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that this mat­ter was al­ready raised at the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. The Sun­day Guardian was al­so in­formed that the mat­ter had been re­opened and was cur­rent­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The list of al­le­ga­tions emailed to Row­ley in­cludes her in­volve­ment in a 'fake NGO (non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion)' called Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, which the group claimed is head­ed by Mc­Don­ald's com­mon-law hus­band, his broth­er and a col­league at the Diego Mar­tin Cred­it Union."

That in­ter­nal PNM bat­tle spilled over to the UNC as Guardian re­porter Kevon Felmine, writ­ing un­der the head­line PM TO EX­POSE "MAR­LENEGATE" in the Guardian on March 24, 2015, in re­la­tion to then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at a UNC Mon­day Night Fo­rum at Debe Junc­tion, on March 23, 2015, re­port­ed as fol­lows:

"But soon af­ter she showed the crowd a huge red file of doc­u­ments be­fore promis­ing to re­veal all on what she called Mar­lenegate, in an ap­par­ent ref­er­ence to PNM Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald. Clar­i­fy­ing that it was not Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Mar­lene Coudray, she said, 'I have a file, which I will leave for an­oth­er night. This file is called Mar­lenegate. I am not speak­ing about Mar­lene Coudray. As I said we have oth­ers to share with you at an­oth­er time on an­oth­er day.

This and oth­er gates we will pro­vide to you as we ex­pose the Op­po­si­tion for the hypocrisy, for the dou­ble stan­dard and for their in­ca­pa­bil­i­ty of ever gov­ern­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.' She al­so promised to ex­pose a MP who has the Par­lia­ment pay­ing an em­ploy­ee who lives in the Unit­ed States. 'On an­oth­er night I want to ask which Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment has a work­er work­ing in their con­stituen­cy col­lect­ing pay and that per­son is liv­ing in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca,' she said."

Last week, this one-year-old sto­ry came to life once more as an ad­di­tion to oth­er sto­ries in re­la­tion to Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald.

In re­spond­ing last year to these al­le­ga­tions made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the Mon­day Night Fo­rum, Leah So­rias re­port­ed in the Ex­press un­der the head­line Mar­lene mum on 'Mar­lenegate' on March 25, 2015, as fol­lows:

"Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald said she will wait to hear what files Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar claims to have on her be­fore she speaks out. 'I am not go­ing to com­ment on that. I have to wait to hear what the Prime Min­is­ter has to say,' Mc­Don­ald told the Ex­press by phone yes­ter­day."

In the same sto­ry, So­rias went on to re­port:

"Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when she rais­es these is­sues it is deemed 'bac­cha­nal', but she is ed­u­cat­ing the peo­ple about the choic­es they have to make in se­lect­ing whom they want to lead this coun­try and en­sur­ing good gov­er­nance. She said the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is not in gov­ern­ment and there is a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment abus­ing their of­fice."

At 9.43 pm on March 23, 2015, TV6 re­porter Ke­jan Haynes tweet­ed on the hash­tag #Mar­lenegate: "Re­al­ly, they pay­ing Ernie Ross all this mon­ey and he can't come up with bet­ter names for scan­dals?"

Shal­iza Has­sanali re­port­ing in the Sun­day Guardian on March 29, 2015, un­der the head­line POS SOUTH: BRING IT ON! wrote:

"Bring it on! That was the re­sponse of some con­stituents of Port-of-Spain South, two days af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar waved a thick file la­belled 'Mar­lenegate' and threat­ened to ex­pose Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP for the area Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald."

Lat­er in the re­port, one Sea Lots res­i­dent said:

"I think the Mar­lenegate file Kam­la promised is just a red her­ring. They are try­ing to bring down our MP, but they will not suc­ceed. Bring it on!"

The al­le­ga­tions made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar in March last year, were down­played for what­ev­er rea­son.

Kirk Wait­he and his pres­sure group Fix­in' TNT has been re­lent­less in their pur­suit of Mc­Don­ald ever since the PNM re­turned to pow­er. He was us­ing the same in­for­ma­tion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was us­ing.

Dr Row­ley had known about the prob­lem since 2014 and took a chance which back­fired be­cause pow­er­ful forces in­side the PNM want­ed Mc­Don­ald gone. He was left with no choice as those forces were pre­pared to turn on him if he did not act even­tu­al­ly.