Khamal Georges

Lead Ed­i­tor, News­gath­er­ing

khamal@georges@cnc3.co.tt

Mon­day’s trounc­ing of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) at the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions was not “en­tire­ly sur­pris­ing” for PNM po­lit­i­cal leader and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, but the mag­ni­tude of the de­feat, 14-1, stung for the man whose navel string is buried deep in the vil­lage of Ma­son Hall.

That dis­trict too, Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah, was al­so swept away in the PDP wave.

Even with five con­sec­u­tive PNM vic­to­ries, Dr Row­ley will be the first To­ba­go-born Prime Min­is­ter to have lost a THA elec­tion.

“I am dis­ap­point­ed. I will not be hon­est if I told you that I wasn’t dis­ap­point­ed,” he told Guardian Me­dia in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view at the Prime Min­is­ter’s Res­i­dence, To­ba­go.

“I would have pre­ferred if we had won. We did the best we could and we didn’t get the re­sult we want­ed. Maybe the best was not good enough,” he added, as he spoke for the first time since Mon­day’s crush­ing de­feat.

Hav­ing moved from a con­vinc­ing ma­jor­i­ty of 10 dis­tricts in (2017) to a 6-6 dead­lock with the PDP - a po­lit­i­cal par­ty just over the three-year mark - the writ­ing was on the wall. Dr Row­ley knew that de­feat was pos­si­ble, but he ad­mits he was sur­prised that the loss was “so heavy.”

“So, I was not sur­prised that we lost but I was a lit­tle sur­prised at the ex­tent of the de­feat,” he con­clud­ed.

But one week on, the Prime Min­is­ter has al­ready re­flect­ed on why the peo­ple of To­ba­go may have been so de­sirous of change in rep­re­sen­ta­tion, choos­ing a new po­lit­i­cal par­ty over the 60-year-old in­sti­tu­tion that he cur­rent­ly leads.

He be­lieves the par­ty’s tenure, chang­ing vot­ing pop­u­la­tions and some of the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges brought on by COVID-19 played a ma­jor fac­tor.

“Don’t for­get we are do­ing this in a pe­ri­od of eco­nom­ic de­cline and in the sec­ond year of a pan­dem­ic where there aren’t very many things you can do to make your­self pop­u­lar,” he ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to him, the very fact that the PNM had won the THA elec­tion five times con­sec­u­tive­ly al­so served as a dis­ad­van­tage.

“Peo­ple get di­vorced on the ba­sis that they’re mar­ried too long.”

“The very fact that you’ve won five times, the very fact that you’re look­ing for a sixth term, it mat­ters not what those five terms were,” he said.

Dr Row­ley al­so sur­mised that a large num­ber of young peo­ple who went out to vote and vot­ed against the PNM may not have un­der­stood the progress that has been made on the is­land.

Ac­cord­ing to him, the PNM would have been in of­fice for most of their lives and there may not be some­thing else to com­pare to.

“They look at the hori­zon go­ing for­ward and say but why am I not a pi­lot in a plane, why am I not a bil­lion­aire, why don’t I have a busi­ness? But when you’re deal­ing with that it is easy to dis­miss the progress you have made. And that is why when you're in of­fice for long, it’s dif­fi­cult to have those peo­ple see you as their sav­iour or their first choice be­cause as far as they are con­cerned, you are there and you have done noth­ing.”

The idea of politi­cians ver­sus of­fice­hold­ers may al­so have been a fac­tor. Dr Row­ley be­lieves the PNM need­ed more politi­cians in To­ba­go.

“If you are in fact a politi­cian, you would be more con­cerned about the po­lit­i­cal ef­fect of your ex­is­tence. If you are an of­fice­hold­er then you might then take for grant­ed that you are in­flu­enc­ing peo­ple when you are not,” he said.

He said it is a wake-up call for the par­ty and it re­quired that it picks it­self up and re­build.

PNM Tobago Council leader Tracy Davidson-Celestine gives her concession speech after her party’s defeat in the THA elections on Monday night.

SHASTRI BOODAN

Should Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine step down?

Dr Row­ley would not say whether Leader of the To­ba­go PNM Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil, Tra­cy David­son-Ce­les­tine should re­sign, but he hoped that tra­di­tions with­in the par­ty would be re­spect­ed.

He was asked whether the re­sults of the last two elec­tions war­rant­ed David­son-Ce­les­tine re­sign­ing in keep­ing with West­min­ster tra­di­tions.

“I don’t have to go as far as the West­min­ster sys­tem, I sim­ply have to stay with the PNM,” he said.

Dr Row­ley re­called when for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning lost the gen­er­al elec­tion of 1995. He said at the time, he fought a cam­paign against his par­ty on the ba­sis that it had gone to the polls and lost.

He felt then that the mem­ber­ship should have a say on whether the leader should con­tin­ue.

“We called that at the time 'reval­i­da­tion'. It meant that the leader would take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for hav­ing lost, you would so de­clare by res­ig­na­tion and that cre­ates a va­can­cy with­in the or­ga­ni­za­tion. The per­son who is the leader can con­test again if he or she so wish­es. And the mem­ber­ship will de­ter­mine whether you con­tin­ue, or they change the lead­er­ship.”

Dr Row­ley says it was that ef­fort that trig­gered the one man, one vote sys­tem in the par­ty.

“So, this is not per­son­al to any per­son and any cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. It is some­thing that has evolved in the par­ty, and I wish we re­spect it.”

On Thurs­day, PNM To­ba­go Is­land Coun­cil chair­man Stan­ford Cal­len­der ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion and called on the ex­ec­u­tive of the Coun­cil to do the same.

David­son-Ce­les­tine re­spond­ed say­ing he speaks for him­self.

But ac­cord­ing to Dr Row­ley, no­body can com­mand any­one to re­sign.

“But I think in the con­text of what you were say­ing, what the par­ty is fac­ing now is the im­per­a­tive to be­gin to re­craft its re­build­ing im­me­di­ate­ly and I think that is all that is.

Asked whether he be­lieves the par­ty can be ‘re­craft­ed’ un­der her lead­er­ship, Dr Row­ley said it was not for him to pro­nounce on.

He said he will not be giv­ing any ad­vice on this mat­ter and if he has to, he will do it pri­vate­ly.

“I have no doubt that at the end of the day of­fi­cers will put the in­ter­est of the par­ty above the in­ter­est of in­di­vid­u­als and put the in­ter­est of the coun­try ahead of the in­ter­est of the par­ty.”

Mov­ing for­ward

The Prime Min­is­ter is as­sur­ing that To­ba­go will not be pe­nalised for its de­ci­sion at the polls and any­one sug­gest­ing this is sim­ply look­ing for some­thing to hold on to.

“I hap­pen to run a gov­ern­ment in T&T and I know of no in­ten­tion to pe­nal­ize any­body,” he said. He said at the lev­el of the Cab­i­net, “we bend over back­wards” to ac­com­mo­date things in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of To­ba­go.

It does not change his po­si­tion on Wat­son Duke and is­sues raised on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form.

In fact, he says he is con­cerned to see that one of the first is­sues is whether the law is be­ing ob­served or not. He was re­fer­ring to the po­si­tion adopt­ed by Duke that he will con­tin­ue to serve as PSA Pres­i­dent but with­out a salary while be­ing ap­point­ed to the THA. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has writ­ten to Duke out­lin­ing what the law says.

But Dr Row­ley as­sures the peo­ple of To­ba­go that will not in­flu­ence de­ci­sions about the is­land. When asked whether the re­sults sug­gest­ed that his pop­u­lar­i­ty was wan­ing in To­ba­go, Dr Row­ley said he has done his best for the is­land.

“What­ev­er it is, that is what it is. But the one thing I can go to sleep with and wake up with is that I have done the best I can for the peo­ple of To­ba­go in a very dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion.”

Bul­ly­ing dur­ing the cam­paign

The Prime Min­is­ter was dis­mis­sive of ‘bul­ly­ing’ talk on the cam­paign trail. He was ac­cused by new THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine of us­ing “bul­ly­ing tac­tics”.

Dur­ing his vic­to­ry speech, Au­gus­tine said the vic­to­ry should serve as a strong mes­sage to the Prime Min­is­ter that that type of bul­ly­ing is part of the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture in Trinidad and it is not wel­come in To­ba­go.

But he said at a meet­ing in Ma­son Hall, he made “very firm” ob­ser­va­tions and cau­tions, which he stands by.

Among those was the is­sue of To­ba­go re­mov­ing it­self from Trinidad and that he was hap­py that the new THA Chief Sec­re­tary has put any re­lat­ed to this to rest. Told that mem­bers of the To­ba­go elec­torate raised con­cerns about the way in which he com­mu­ni­cates to them, Dr Row­ley said that has nev­er been an is­sue in his 40 years of pol­i­tics.

“My style in pol­i­tics is that I do not pussy­foot in what I say,” he pushed back.

“If you are de­scrib­ing and mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to me that I should not say these things, or I should not say them so, well, it’s the on­ly way I know,” he re­spond­ed.

“I have nev­er in­sult­ed any­body on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form in To­ba­go. I have nev­er in­sult­ed any­body in the po­lit­i­cal are­na. I have tak­en is­sue, I have re­spond­ed to is­sues, I have raised is­sues and I am usu­al­ly firm in my po­si­tions.”