Gail Alexan­der

For­mer prime min­is­ter and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says he, as par­ty leader, lost Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion and not out­go­ing PM Stu­art Young.

“I’m the leader. I was the leader at the time, so I lose it. I lose it. I’m the leader,” Row­ley said last night, not­ing the PNM had had 22 seats and had gone out to win the elec­tion.

Row­ley made the point dur­ing a wide-rang­ing ad­dress to re­porters at the PNM’s Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain af­ter last night’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil, where he sub­mit­ted a res­ig­na­tion as leader which be­comes ef­fec­tive to­day.

Row­ley added, “I think Stu­art did a won­der­ful job in cam­paign­ing as a prime min­is­ter in of­fer­ing the coun­try a new be­gin­ning ... I with­drew my­self be­fore he came to the fore. The par­ty took the op­por­tu­ni­ty ... when we gath­ered in Tu­na­puna last Sat­ur­day with the par­ty faith­ful, they took the op­por­tu­ni­ty, the wider elec­torate didn’t. But there are days and weeks and months ahead, let’s see what comes along.”

On what ad­vice he’d give to Young, who re­signed as PNM chair­man yes­ter­day, Row­ley said, “Stay calm ...”

He said Young’s abil­i­ty to do his job was the first box “ticked” for the post of PM.

Row­ley said he gen­uine­ly be­lieved that the time had come for the PNM to re­ju­ve­nate it­self in a trans­for­ma­tion that in­volved youth and the en­er­gy of youth in­to the lead­er­ship of the coun­try via the par­ty’s lead­er­ship.

“I still think so. There­fore, if oth­er peo­ple who have the call re­verse that, well, they may have some­thing else to of­fer.”

On the nar­ra­tive against the de­ci­sion for Young to be PM be­cause the PNM was an Afro-TT par­ty, Row­ley said one per­son who was very promi­nent in the PNM and has be­come very promi­nent in the UNC, spent a lot of en­er­gy when he had ac­cess to the PNM ears.

“Grind­ing our ears that the PNM is and must re­main an African par­ty. We re­ject­ed that, as that was not what the PNM’s fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples said. It said that we are a ral­ly for all.”

Row­ley al­so warned of neg­a­tive ef­fects of UNC plans: from cut­ting prop­er­ty tax and cor­po­ra­tion tax, to rene­go­ti­at­ing con­tracts and re­mov­ing VAT on items.