Camille McEach­nie

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley may have in­ad­ver­tent­ly giv­en the pe­ri­od when the forth­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions will be held yes­ter­day af­ter he in­ad­ver­tent­ly re­vealed that the cur­rent term of the Par­lia­ment will be dis­solved in Ju­ly.

In what ap­peared to be an un­in­ten­tion­al slip of the tongue dur­ing a morn­ing talk show on To­ba­go’s lone tele­vi­sion sta­tion To­ba­go Chan­nel 5, Row­ley made the state­ment while an­swer­ing ques­tions about greater au­ton­o­my for the is­land.

“We in the PNM are the on­ly po­lit­i­cal par­ty that by res­o­lu­tion in our con­gress ... said that we are com­mit­ted to fur­ther To­ba­go’s self-gov­ern­ment ... What we need to do is try and ac­cel­er­ate it through the Par­lia­ment ... the com­mit­tee re­ports to the Par­lia­ment off and on and there’ll prob­a­bly be a re­port be­fore the Par­lia­ment dis­solves in Ju­ly,” Row­ley said.

If the Par­lia­ment is dis­solved in Ju­ly as sug­gest­ed by the PM, it means it will be due with­in 90 days, which could see the coun­try un­der­tak­ing the elec­tion process by Oc­to­ber or even ear­li­er.

The dis­cus­sion on au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go and the elec­tion came two days af­ter the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment screened can­di­dates for the two elec­toral seats—To­ba­go East and West—and re­tained Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy and Sham­fa Cud­joe.

Ear­li­er in the in­ter­view, Row­ley was if he would re­veal the date of the elec­tion. Laugh­ing, Row­ley asked the host if he was a reg­is­tered vot­er be­fore adding, “I kept say­ing all along that elec­tions will be held when they are due and the elec­tions are due. We are com­ing to the point at the end of this term. I have been in Gov­ern­ment now. I have been your Prime Min­is­ter now for four, al­most five years...

“The life of this Par­lia­ment will come to an end to­wards the end of Sep­tem­ber and un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, once it goes to that end, you have ...no more 90 days to call the elec­tions. If the Par­lia­ment is pro­rogued be­fore that, what­ev­er date it’s pro­rogued you have 90 days, so we are now in June.”

Asked about the PNM screen­ing com­mit­tee’s de­ci­sion to go again with Web­ster-Roy and Cud­joe, Row­ley said both women had done well at the na­tion­al lev­el.

Ques­tioned fur­ther on Web­ster-Roy’s chances of re­tain­ing the seat against the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots’ can­di­date Wat­son Duke, Row­ley said she had al­ready proven her­self.

“You have it the wrong way. It is who­ev­er is com­ing to chal­lenge Web­ster-Roy. (She) was se­lect­ed by the peo­ple of To­ba­go East quite over­whelm­ing­ly and she has gone on to jus­ti­fy that se­lec­tion,” Row­ley said.