Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus, Robert Le Hunte and Mar­i­ano Browne, far from rep­re­sent­ing any sig­nif­i­cant fac­tion of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), do not re­flect the broad­er uni­ty with­in the par­ty and their crit­i­cisms are iso­lat­ed and lack the col­lec­tive weight nec­es­sary to sug­gest any frac­ture with­in the par­ty, says the PNM Women's League.

The league said this in a state­ment on Sun­day in which it al­so slammed po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James' com­ments on the par­ty in his week­ly col­umn.

The league, chaired by la­dy vice chair­man Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, stat­ed, "Dr Win­ford James’ ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled ‘Row­ley go­ing but not gone’ is a glar­ing ex­am­ple of po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary veer­ing in­to mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and con­jec­ture. In his pur­suit of a nar­ra­tive rife with in­ac­cu­ra­cies and per­son­al bias, Dr James fails to grasp the re­al­i­ties of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s dis­tin­guished po­lit­i­cal lega­cy and the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate sur­round­ing his planned de­par­ture.

"Dr James’ as­ser­tion of 're­sent­ment' among the PNM mem­ber­ship is a bla­tant dis­tor­tion of re­al­i­ty. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley left an over­flow­ing gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing, re­ceiv­ing loud, lusty ap­plause of a sat­is­fied and unit­ed PNM gen­er­al coun­cil.

"Where ex­act­ly does Dr James find ev­i­dence of dis­sent or dis­cord? In Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus? Robert Le Hunte? Mar­i­ano Browne? These in­di­vid­u­als, far from rep­re­sent­ing any sig­nif­i­cant fac­tion of the par­ty, do not re­flect the broad­er uni­ty with­in the PNM. Their crit­i­cisms, while am­pli­fied by some, are iso­lat­ed and lack the col­lec­tive weight nec­es­sary to sug­gest any frac­ture with­in the par­ty."

The league said even when Row­ley an­nounced his im­mi­nent res­ig­na­tion as Prime Min­is­ter, "the par­ty’s uni­ty re­mained in­tact."

"By Jan­u­ary 6th, Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives had en­dorsed his de­ci­sion, and by Jan­u­ary 11th, the gen­er­al coun­cil—though not re­quired to do so— re­sound­ing­ly af­firmed the choice of Hon. Stu­art Young as his suc­ces­sor. These de­vel­op­ments on­ly fur­ther un­der­score the PNM's in­ter­nal sol­i­dar­i­ty. The par­ty stands res­olute­ly unit­ed, with Dr Row­ley con­tin­u­ing to guide it with clear vi­sion and un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion."

It added, "This co­he­sion and shared com­mit­ment to core val­ues high­light that democ­ra­cy with­in the PNM is not on­ly alive but thriv­ing, as dif­fer­ences of opin­ion are ad­dressed con­struc­tive­ly, fur­ther so­lid­i­fy­ing the par­ty’s foun­da­tion."

The league dis­missed James' crit­i­cism of Row­ley for not de­liv­er­ing To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my as "... fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed."

"The facts are clear: the bill re­quired a three-fourths ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, with all 22 PNM mem­bers vot­ing in favour of au­ton­o­my while all 19 Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers vot­ed re­sound­ing­ly against it. ... this is not a fail­ure of lead­er­ship but a re­flec­tion of the po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ty in a di­vid­ed Par­lia­ment.

"Dr James con­ve­nient­ly over­looks the fact that dur­ing the gov­er­nance of the late A.N.R. Robin­son, de­spite his lofty rhetoric, no sig­nif­i­cant ad­vance­ments were made re­gard­ing To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my even though that gov­ern­ment held a ma­jor­i­ty of 33 NAR to 3 PNM."

The league said James' per­son­al at­tacks on Row­ley’s po­lit­i­cal lega­cy ring hol­low.

"Giv­en (James') own lack of suc­cess in the po­lit­i­cal are­na ... Dr James at­tempt­ed to en­ter Par­lia­ment but failed so spec­tac­u­lar­ly he lost his de­posit. Such a record hard­ly qual­i­fies him to lec­ture a leader who has served T&T with dis­tinc­tion for 45 years," it said.

"Dr Row­ley’s de­ci­sion to step away from pol­i­tics af­ter 45 years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice is a tes­ta­ment to his states­man­ship. Un­like any oth­er Prime Min­is­ter in T&T's his­to­ry, he is do­ing this on his own terms, not due to dy­ing in of­fice or po­lit­i­cal de­feat. He's leav­ing of his own vo­li­tion and leaves be­hind a lega­cy of sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments..."