Richard Lord

Three months af­ter he reached 63, Ken­neth Val­ley, the man who called his leader Patrick Man­ning a dic­ta­tor, has died. Val­ley, a for­mer Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, died at 3.30 am at his home in Glen­coe, Pt Cumana yes­ter­day morn­ing, ac­cord­ing to his son Sean, a for­mer banker. Val­ley's wife Car­ol Anne was at his bed­side at the time of his death. He died from colon can­cer, his son said. Sean said Val­ley was loved by 30,000 peo­ple in his for­mer con­stituen­cy. "My dad served them well and I am proud of him," Sean said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day. "We will all miss him very much," he added.

Val­ley was ap­point­ed an Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in 1987, af­ter the 33-3 de­feat of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment in 1986. He lat­er served as Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Trade and In­dus­try min­is­ter and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance in PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions. Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley in his trib­ute yes­ter­day, said Val­ley's pass­ing was "a per­son­al loss to me as he was al­ways a trust­ed friend and re­li­able col­league." Row­ley said Val­ley was "a dis­tin­guished cit­i­zen who ex­em­pli­fied the qual­i­ties of loy­al­ty and ded­i­ca­tion." He said Val­ley "con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the re­build­ing of the PNM and made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the es­tab­lish­ment of poli­cies and pro­grammes which were ef­fect­ed by the par­ty and the Gov­ern­ment." Val­ley was born in Cou­va on Feb­ru­ary 8, 1948, and was ed­u­cat­ed at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (1968-1971), and Mc­Mas­ter Uni­ver­si­ty, Cana­da (1972-1973). He was a pri­ma­ry school teacher from 1963 to 1968.

He was elect­ed MP for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral in the by-elec­tion of 1990, af­ter the death of then MP Leo Des Vi­gnes, dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup by the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen. Val­ley made head­lines in Ju­ly 1995 when he open­ly clashed with House Speak­er Oc­c­ah Sea­paul over a mo­tion to have the deputy speak­er pre­side over a mat­ter. Sea­paul nev­er al­lowed the mo­tion to de­bate a Con­sti­tu­tion­al (Amend­ment) Bill. Val­ley told leg­is­la­tors dur­ing the sit­ting that "there is a cloud hang­ing over the Par­lia­ment." Sea­paul said: "I don't see any cloud hang­ing over the Par­lia­ment." The de­bate was heat­ed as then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Kei­th So­bion was forced to switch off Val­ley's mi­cro­phone as he got up to re­spond to the Speak­er again.

Speak­er Sea­paul said if there was no agree­ment, the House would have to be ad­journed to Fri­day. Val­ley got up quick­ly and said: "I am ad­journ­ing the House to Thurs­day at 1.30 pm." But Sea­paul ob­ject­ed to that date.

"No, no, no, you can't do that," she said. At the end of the sit­ting as Sea­paul left the Cham­ber-be­fore the mace was re­moved-Val­ley shout­ed: "You could run but you can't hide." She sub­se­quent­ly sus­pend­ed Val­ley from Par­lia­ment. Those in­ci­dents led to the de­c­la­ra­tion of a state of emer­gency in the coun­try and Sea­paul was put un­der house ar­rest at her Mary Street, St Clair, res­i­dence. And Sea­paul said yes­ter­day that his death was in­deed a sad loss for the coun­try.

She added, how­ev­er, that "the spir­it and soul of Val­ley will nev­er die, it will live on a a high­er place." Sea­paul said she and Val­ley might have had dif­fer­ences in the past be­cause that was part of life. She said, how­ev­er, that she nev­er held him in bondage for that. She said they chat­ted sub­se­quent to the heat­ed ex­changes in 1995 and they were good friends. She said life was a con­tin­u­ous cy­cle. Sev­er­al years lat­er, Val­ley had dif­fer­ences with PNM leader Patrick Man­ning and was not se­lect­ed to con­test the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tions.

He lat­er de­scribed PNM leader Patrick Man­ning as man with dic­ta­to­r­i­al ten­den­cies. PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Joan Yuille-Williams said Val­ley was "a tru­ly pre­cious per­son." Yuille-Williams said Val­ley was loved by many for his courage and com­pe­tence. She said Val­ley as­sist­ed her even when she act­ed as Prime Min­is­ter.

For­mer PNM chair­man Dr Lenny Saith said Val­ley was a "true pa­tri­ot."

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress chair­man Jack Warn­er said Val­ley nev­er lost touch with the com­mon man and woman in the so­ci­ety. He said Val­ley, who walked among "kings, princes and com­mon­ers (and) who was re­spect­ed by all and loved by many." Warn­er said Val­ley was "a true son of the soil." More trib­utes are ex­pect­ed to be paid to the late Ken Val­ley dur­ing Wednes­day's sit­ing of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Val­ley served as MP for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral from De­cem­ber 1990 to No­vem­ber 2007.