sto­ries by Akash Sama­roo

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Se­nior Re­porter

For­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte be­lieves Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley wants the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s fu­ture leader to be de­cid­ed by a small clique of peo­ple rather than the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship.

“The con­cept of trust me or trust the leader in mak­ing the right de­ci­sion, is def­i­nite­ly not one we will ex­pect a par­ty like PNM, with its rich his­to­ry, will do,” Le Hunte said yes­ter­day.

Le Hunte made the com­ment in re­sponse to a me­dia re­port yes­ter­day, in which Row­ley ques­tioned the mo­tives of peo­ple com­ment­ing on the par­ty’s af­fairs in the me­dia.

In the re­port, Dr Row­ley not­ed that Le Hunte de­cid­ed to re­sign from his Cab­i­net on the verge of the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, and ques­tioned how se­ri­ous­ly he could take Le Hunte’s com­men­tary on the cur­rent is­sues in the par­ty.

Le Hunte is one of the few long-stand­ing PNM mem­bers who raised ques­tions about the par­ty’s de­ci­sion to can­cel its an­nu­al con­ven­tion and in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Le Hunte said his com­ments should not to be tak­en per­son­al­ly as it per­tained to the process of the PNM.

“It is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the mem­ber­ship in any de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem to not just as­sume that the leader will not do any­thing out­side of the tra­di­tions and con­sti­tu­tion of the par­ty. They must po­lice and en­sure that is so to do, oth­er­wise it will fa­cil­i­tate the slip­pery slope of dic­ta­tor­ship,” he said.

Le Hunte said the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship should re­main a vi­tal stake­hold­er to the process of se­lect­ing its new leader.

“What we are be­ing called up­on to do is to sup­port a small clique of peo­ple who are try­ing to hoist up­on us a prime min­is­ter of the coun­try (the high­est po­si­tion in this coun­try with all its com­men­su­rate pow­ers), who may not have the full sup­port of the mem­ber­ship of his par­ty, but rather the sup­port of MPs who them­selves were se­lect­ed by a screen­ing com­mit­tee in which the mem­ber­ship did not have a full say,” Le Hunte told Guardian Me­dia.

He added, “And we must do this, sim­ply un­der the dis­guise of ‘Trust me’ and let’s ride it out. We need to be vig­i­lant as we pro­tect our rights and voice.”

And while Row­ley de­nied he has a clear choice for his suc­ces­sor in the me­dia re­port, Le Hunte said the PM is “not fool­ing any­one.”

How­ev­er, Le Hunte said his main con­cern is en­sur­ing the con­sti­tu­tion and tra­di­tions of the par­ty in se­lect­ing its new leader are up­held.

“I felt the can­cel­la­tion of the con­ven­tion and the par­ty elec­tions was not in the lead­er­ship’s purview to do and it was not in the best in­ter­est of the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship. I took a po­si­tion and spoke out, re­sult­ing in the gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing be­ing called to rat­i­fy the de­ci­sion, the con­ven­tion was moved from can­celled to post­pone,” he ex­plained.

Re­gard­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ment on his res­ig­na­tion from the Cab­i­net and the tim­ing of it, Le Hunte said, “I did what I would ex­pect any pro­fes­sion­al per­son sit­ting in cab­i­net would do when called up­on to ex­e­cute an in­struc­tion that they felt was not in the best in­ter­est of the coun­try. I re­quest­ed a meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter to fur­ther dis­cuss in­struc­tions that I was giv­en to ex­e­cute that I had great dif­fi­cul­ty in fol­low­ing and went against pro­fes­sion­al ad­vice re­ceived. “Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, if he didn’t feel it nec­es­sary for fur­ther dis­cus­sions, not want­i­ng to be an ob­struc­tion­ist, I of­fered my res­ig­na­tion and gave him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­point some­one who he felt will car­ry out his in­struc­tion with­out ques­tion.”

Le Hunte re­signed as min­is­ter, sen­a­tor and PNM vice chair­man in 2021 due to a dif­fer­ence in pol­i­cy po­si­tions re­gard­ing the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty.

With re­spect to the tim­ing of his res­ig­na­tion, Le Hunte ex­plained, “I have no con­trol over the time when Dr Row­ley choos­es to do things that are out­side of the con­sti­tu­tion or things that I feel are not in the best in­ter­est of the par­ty.”

He said it is strange Dr Row­ley would ap­pear to be up­set with those call­ing for the PNM to ad­here to its de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples when the very same Dr Row­ley put his coun­try be­fore the par­ty in 2010, when he spoke out against Patrick Man­ning and his per­ceived is­sues at UDe­COTT.

But of­fer­ing his opin­ion on the PNM’s cur­rent in­ter­nal is­sues, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj yes­ter­day crit­i­cised the me­dia for its han­dling of the mat­ter.

“Is there present­ly a va­can­cy (for po­lit­i­cal leader)? We are talk­ing about two years from now, so why is this rel­e­vant now?” Ram­samooj said.

“This is­sue of lead­er­ship with­in the PNM, like all po­lit­i­cal par­ties is an in­ter­nal mat­ter. Not to be dri­ven by the me­dia at­tempt­ing to cre­ate a pub­lic opin­ion. Present­ly, there is no va­can­cy for the po­si­tion of chair­man, po­lit­i­cal leader and gen­er­al sec­re­tary. How­ev­er, be­cause there’s a pend­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, there are cer­tain el­e­ments in our so­ci­ety who are right­ful­ly po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. But none of the po­lit­i­cal stake­hold­ers have fo­cused on the econ­o­my, the so­ci­ety or pro­vid­ing al­ter­na­tive pol­i­cy po­si­tions to struc­ture the econ­o­my and to keep so­ci­ety safe,” he added.

Ram­samooj said “po­lit­i­cal bac­cha­na­lia” seems to be the mo­ti­va­tion rather than find­ing so­lu­tions to na­tion­al chal­lenges.

“His­tor­i­cal­ly, all po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties go through a pe­ri­od of eval­u­a­tion from the days of Dr Er­ic Williams to George Cham­bers, to Sagan Maraj, to Bas­deo Pan­day and what we are see­ing now with Dr Row­ley and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Our po­lit­i­cal par­ties are strug­gling to evolve above lead­er­ship in­flu­ence ver­sus or­gan­i­sa­tion of the par­ty,” he ar­gued.

Ram­samooj said con­sen­sus will emerge from these con­flicts, “so it is much ado about noth­ing and more to do with po­lit­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties feel­ing left out of the po­lit­i­cal game.”