Richard Lord

For­mer pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son has ex­plained his rea­sons for ap­point­ing Patrick Man­ning as prime min­is­ter in De­cem­ber 2001 af­ter the PNM/UNC 18/18 tie at the polls. Robin­son had said then that on the ba­sis of "moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues," Man­ning was the bet­ter per­son to lead the Gov­ern­ment of T&T.

In his book In the Midst of It, which was launched at the Cen­tral Bank Au­di­to­ri­um, Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day evening, Robin­son said he reached his con­tro­ver­sial de­ci­sion af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with both Man­ning and Bas­deo Pan­day, the in­cum­bent PM.

Among the spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests at the launch were Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards and his wife Dr Jean Ramjohn-Richards, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Rodger Samuel, chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion Ken­neth Gor­don, Robin­son's daugh­ter, Ann-Mar­garet and his grand­daugh­ter Anush­ka. There was no fan­fare nor was the na­tion­al an­them played af­ter the ar­rival of the Pres­i­dent, caus­ing some present to ex­press anger.

In his 261-page book, which he start­ed writ­ing since he was PM in 1986, Robin­son said he want­ed to ap­point a prime min­is­ter be­fore Christ­mas of 2001 as the coun­try was "in a state of sus­pense" and sev­er­al days had elapsed af­ter the his­toric elec­tion and the coun­try had no gov­ern­ment. Robin­son said he de­cid­ed to ad­dress the na­tion af­ter speak­ing "pri­vate­ly and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly" with both Man­ning and Pan­day. He said to his great sur­prise "a great com­mo­tion took place be­cause of my ref­er­ence to moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues," which he said was an ex­cerpt from the T&T?Con­sti­tu­tion.

Robin­son said he ap­point­ed Man­ning not on­ly be­cause of that but al­so "be­cause of the oath of of­fice which Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment had tak­en, on which I made the de­ci­sion." Robin­son said in his au­to­bi­og­ra­phy:?"Af­ter all, I had no doubt that if mem­bers had ad­hered to their oath of of­fice, they would ad­vise me to ap­point Man­ning as the Prime Min­is­ter."

He not­ed the de­ci­sion was con­tro­ver­sial as some peo­ple ac­cept­ed it and oth­ers did not "and se­vere at­tacks fol­lowed" as they felt the in­cum­bent should have been al­lowed to con­tin­ue as prime min­is­ter. Robin­son said: "In the pe­ri­od that fol­lowed, the sit­u­a­tion in the Par­lia­ment was one of non-co-op­er­a­tion. It be­came clear that the agree­ment be­tween the two (Man­ning and Pan­day) to abide by what­ev­er de­ci­sion I took in ap­point­ing a prime min­is­ter was not hold­ing."

Robin­son said it was ap­par­ent that fresh elec­tions would have to be called and he was asked to re­main in of­fice for an ad­di­tion­al year in 2002, as the coun­try was un­set­tled and the busi­ness of the Gov­ern­ment could not pro­ceed as it should. He said in Oc­to­ber 2002, the PNM won the elec­tion and se­cured a ma­jor­i­ty. Robin­son said his be­quest "to the youth of this na­tion, in­deed to the world, is to 'dream the im­pos­si­ble dream.'"

Robin­son's daugh­ter Ann-Mar­garet, in her ad­dress, said her fa­ther was not per­fect but very hu­man, and the book was a re­flec­tion of the man Arthur NR Robin­son. Prof Courte­nay Bartholomew said Robin­son dis­played great pa­tri­o­tism while he was a hostage of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup and as­sault on Par­lia­ment, and was pre­pared to give his life in the in­ter­est of pre­serv­ing T&T's democ­ra­cy.