Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Dr Kei­th Row­ley has hint­ed that his speech at the Good­wood Sec­ondary School on Sat­ur­day night may be his fi­nal po­lit­i­cal ad­dress as leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to To­bag­o­ni­ans. He al­so warned vot­ers to stay away from politi­cians who “talk non­sense” and to use their vote wise­ly.

“I have noth­ing more to say to you in To­ba­go. This is the last speech I am mak­ing in To­ba­go as a politi­cian,” Row­ley told the gath­er­ing dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion.

He re­called his first po­lit­i­cal speech in To­ba­go decades ago and said his jour­ney had come full cir­cle.

“I made my first speech in Belle Gar­den in 1980 dur­ing the first-ever House of As­sem­bly at that elec­tion. I ac­com­pa­nied Bon­nie Pad­more to Belle Gar­den. That’s where I spoke for the first time on a plat­form for the PNM, and tonight, I speak for the last time in Good­wood,” he said.

Row­ley stepped down as prime min­is­ter on March 15 and was suc­ceed­ed by Stu­art Young. How­ev­er, Row­ley re­mained as PNM leader and al­though he has in­di­cat­ed he will al­so va­cate that po­si­tion, he has not said when he will do so.

Ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence on Sat­ur­day, Row­ley urged To­bag­o­ni­ans to take the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion se­ri­ous­ly.

“You can­not say you do not know. You can­not say you do not care, be­cause your chil­dren want you to care. To­ba­go de­vel­op­ment needs your car­ing. To­ba­go fu­ture is in your hands. Is not in the hands of the Gov­ern­ment—Cen­tral or THA. To­ba­go’s fu­ture is on the fin­ger of every vot­er in To­ba­go.”

He told vot­ers to re­ject any politi­cian who lacks sense or in­tegri­ty.

“I’m warn­ing you in To­ba­go, have noth­ing to do with any­body who come and send you noth­ing,” he said. “Let’s as­sume for one mo­ment that you put God out your thoughts on April 28 and you vote the two seats and you plu­ralise the elec­tion. What is the next de­vel­op­ment you ex­pect?”

He said if the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) wins the seats and sup­ports the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) there will be no progress.

He warned that trust­ing dis­hon­est politi­cians could cost To­ba­go its fu­ture.

“And when the two seats don’t see in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment be­ing tak­en se­ri­ous­ly by the UNC, what will they do? Will they stay there and sup­port them as they emp­ty the Trea­sury, or will they re­sign and come home and com­plain to you? Ei­ther way, if it is not the PNM, what you go­ing to get is that dou­ble dose of chaos. That’s what you’re go­ing to get. You’re go­ing to get cor­rup­tion, you’re go­ing to get lies, you’re go­ing to get dis­re­gard.”

He called the TPP and its al­lies “un­grate­ful wretch­es” who of­fer vot­ers noth­ing but hate and con­fu­sion.

“They have no cam­paign be­cause they have no pol­i­cy, they have no pro­gramme, they have no his­to­ry. So there­fore, they have to come and fab­ri­cate fool­ish­ness to you about go­ing down to Trinidad for au­ton­o­my.”

Row­ley told the crowd he trust­ed vot­ers to make the right de­ci­sion.

“I know you will vote for the PNM. I know there are more peo­ple in To­ba­go who will take this mat­ter se­ri­ous­ly. I know there are young peo­ple in To­ba­go who want their fu­ture se­cured. I know there are peo­ple in To­ba­go who con­tributed to To­ba­go de­vel­op­ment and will not see that squan­dered.”

He closed his speech with a last ap­peal for vot­ers to re-elect the PNM’s can­di­dates.

“And you all come out to the polls. Use your vote sen­si­bly. Use your vote wise­ly. Vote for Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy in To­ba­go East, vote for Sham­fa Cud­joe in To­ba­go West. Your de­vel­op­ment. And when you do that, on the 29th of April, you will con­tin­ue the de­vel­op­ment un­der the PNM guid­ance.”