Out­go­ing Prime Min­is­ter and po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Dr Kei­th Row­ley has made a call for mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress who are dis­sat­is­fied with their par­ty to join the PNM.

Row­ley made the call as he ad­dressed PNM sup­port­ers at a po­lit­i­cal ral­ly in Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, last night.

He spoke about the clar­i­ty and trans­paren­cy of the PNM screen­ing process for gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates as op­posed to that of the UNC where he claimed that deals are be­ing made.

“I un­der­stand that in the oth­er par­ty there are nine peo­ple promised the post of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, sev­en of them promised the post of Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs.”

He crit­i­cised the UNC, which he said has been screen­ing for months but has not named all their can­di­dates.

“The PNM, we don’t make deals, we ask for com­mit­ment, we ask for qual­i­ty, we ask for ser­vice, we ask for a be­lief in the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

But Row­ley went on to make an un­prece­dent­ed po­lit­i­cal move.

“And tonight I want to put a call out, all those of you in the UNC, and I want to quote Patrick Man­ning here, ‘who have found your­self heavy-laden’ come to the PNM and we shall give you po­lit­i­cal rest, be­cause the PNM is here for you,” he said to the cheers from par­ty sup­port­ers.

Row­ley urged those from the UNC that if they have an in­ten­tion to be good to this coun­try and to be a de­cent right-think­ing cit­i­zen want­i­ng to con­tribute to the po­lit­i­cal are­na, “ the doors of the PNM are open.”

In the past weeks there have been sev­er­al res­ig­na­tions with­in the UNC, among them ac­tivist Vic­tor Roberts and Lar­ry Lal­la, who at­tend­ed the Wood­ford Square event yes­ter­day.

Oth­er mem­bers such as Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) Dr Rai Rag­bir and Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly have writ­ten to the par­ty in­form­ing them of their de­ci­sions to no longer take part in the screen­ing process to con­test the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion when it is called.

Oth­er MPs who have been la­belled as so-called dis­si­dents, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne and Rush­ton Paray have been screened by the UNC and are await­ing feed­back on who the par­ty has cho­sen to con­test the seat.

The oth­er dis­si­dent, Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles, has in­di­cat­ed that he is re­tir­ing from elec­toral pol­i­tics.

The five UNC MPs have been at odds with the lead­er­ship of the par­ty since they pub­licly made calls for last year’s in­ter­nal elec­tions to be called and pub­licly crit­i­cised the lead­er­ship style of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

When asked to com­ment on the re­cent res­ig­na­tions, in­clud­ing some with­in the UNC’s La Brea con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed them and said they would have no im­pact on the par­ty at the polls.