Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The fact that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley doesn’t want in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers for the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion tells the Op­po­si­tion that the PNM “as al­ways will play dirty”, Ch­agua­nas MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly claimed yes­ter­day.

Point­ing out one of the ways that the UNC is dif­fer­ent from the PNM, he claimed: “Their say­ing it takes cash to care as an ex­cuse to im­pose prop­er­ty tax shows PNM’s way of car­ing for you is to tax you more. “

Ram­bal­ly, who spoke at a UNC me­dia brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Port-of-Spain, said cit­i­zens have an op­por­tu­ni­ty in the up­com­ing elec­tion to stand their ground against the Gov­ern­ment.

“This regime, which has tak­en the peo­ple for grant­ed, ne­glect­ed and ig­nored them for too long. This elec­tion is about stand­ing up against ex­ec­u­tive over­reach and Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley’s bul­ly­ing tac­tics,” he said.

He claimed the UNC forced Row­ley’s hand to call the elec­tion fol­low­ing a bat­tle in which the Privy Coun­cil ruled against the ex­ten­sion of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term.

“We must re­main alert to this Gov­ern­ment’s every ac­tion as the PNM has a his­to­ry of in­fring­ing peo­ples’ rights,” Ram­bal­ly said.

“Per­haps the most an­ti-de­mo­c­ra­t­ic act of Dr Row­ley yet is his fail­ure to ac­cede to in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers. It is un­for­tu­nate that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley pre­tends to mis­un­der­stand this re­quest by the Op­po­si­tion.

“Democ­ra­cy is more than the feel­ing of pri­va­cy in the vot­ing booths. Democ­ra­cy is the du­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter to prop­er­ly con­sid­er and com­ply with a re­quest for elec­tion ob­servers.

“It is not that Dr Row­ley doesn’t know this. He asked for and got in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers in 2015 so he knows how this works. The fact that he does not want ob­servers now tells us that the PNM, as al­ways, will play dirty,” Ram­bal­ly al­leged

He said call­ing for elec­tion ob­servers doesn’t equate to an at­tack on the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion since elec­tion ob­ser­va­tion “doesn’t in­ter­vene in the process or mit­i­gate elec­tion-day cheat­ing,” but en­sures elec­toral in­tegri­ty, helps re­store trust in democ­ra­cy, and grants the elec­tion le­git­i­ma­cy.

“In­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors look to in­vest in coun­tries with sta­ble po­lit­i­cal and elec­toral sys­tems. The Prime Min­is­ter must con­sid­er what mes­sage he is send­ing to po­ten­tial in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors when the of­fi­cial Op­po­si­tion has asked for in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers and the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion is deny­ing it. “

“He’s telling the world that Trinidad and To­ba­go is fast be­com­ing a to­tal­i­tar­i­an state and doesn’t pro­mote any per­cep­tion of free and fair elec­tions,” he said.

Ram­bal­ly and Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles said the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment cre­at­ed 50,000 jobs and did not in­tro­duce any new tax­es, un­like the PNM with the prop­er­ty tax.

“While Dr Row­ley in­sists prop­er­ty tax­es won’t af­fect cit­i­zens, the truth is that he doesn’t know what he’s talk­ing about. He claims prop­er­ty tax­es will on­ly cost as much as a din­ner mint, which costs $3. We all know two din­ner mints will cost a max­i­mum of 50 cents each. That’s the road­side price, not the price on Row­ley’s golf course. This sim­ply proves that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley is out of touch with re­al­i­ty,” Ram­bal­ly added.

Urg­ing cit­i­zens to con­sid­er na­tion­al is­sues like crime and not fall for “the PNM’s stuck record ti­tled lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form” he said: “They ig­nored all the roads for the past years, al­lowed them to fall in­to a state of dis­re­pair, and as a gov­ern­ment com­ing to say that lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form will fix every­thing?”

“Sim­i­lar­ly the PNM did noth­ing dur­ing suc­ces­sive dry sea­sons and now blame the rainy sea­son for their in­com­pe­tence. Cli­mate change isn’t the prob­lem - it’s too much PNM in­com­pe­tence.”