“So I am a liar?” Rowley disputes PNM invitation response

Akash Sama­roo

For­mer prime min­is­ter and for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Dr Kei­th Row­ley, is stand­ing firm on his claim that he was not in­vit­ed to the par­ty’s 70th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, de­spite the par­ty pro­duc­ing ev­i­dence to the con­trary.

Row­ley dou­bled down on his po­si­tion yes­ter­day, dis­miss­ing the PNM’s re­sponse and sug­gest­ing he has not re­ceived any for­mal in­vi­ta­tion.

“So, I am a liar! I will not be spar­ring with them. But I stand by my state­ment un­til the pi­geon makes the de­liv­ery,” he said.

His com­ments come af­ter the PNM is­sued a de­tailed state­ment re­fut­ing his ini­tial claim that he had been left out of the mile­stone event.

Speak­ing on Tues­day, Row­ley had first raised the is­sue, ex­press­ing dis­ap­point­ment that he learned of the cel­e­bra­tions in­di­rect­ly.

“I don’t know which day it was, be­cause my col­leagues didn’t in­vite me. But I could find out the time. I ran the PNM for 15 years, five years in op­po­si­tion, 10 years in gov­ern­ment, one through gen­er­al elec­tion. And the PNM is cel­e­brat­ing 70 years of the po­lit­i­cal par­ty in this coun­try. And I got to hear about it,” Row­ley said.

In re­sponse, the PNM main­tained that an in­vi­ta­tion was, in fact, is­sued and de­liv­ered to the for­mer leader ahead of the Jan­u­ary 26 event.

“The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, in the high­est tra­di­tions of cour­tesy, fel­low­ship and good­will, pub­licly in­vit­ed all mem­bers to at­tend its 70th An­niver­sary Cel­e­bra­tions,” the par­ty said.

It added that Row­ley, as a spe­cial guest, was for­mal­ly in­vit­ed through of­fi­cial chan­nels.

“As is cus­tom­ary for spe­cial guests, a let­ter of in­vi­ta­tion was is­sued through the Of­fice of the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary to for­mer Po­lit­i­cal Leader, Dr Kei­th Row­ley. The let­ter, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 21, was hand-de­liv­ered to Dr Row­ley’s res­i­dence on Jan­u­ary 22, 2026,” the state­ment said.

The par­ty al­so re­leased a copy of the in­vi­ta­tion let­ter, signed by Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, which ex­tend­ed a “most cor­dial in­vi­ta­tion” to Row­ley and his wife to at­tend the cel­e­bra­tion at Queen’s Hall.

“Your pres­ence at this mile­stone an­niver­sary would be most mean­ing­ful. We would be deeply ho­n­oured to wel­come you and Mrs Row­ley as our spe­cial guests on this aus­pi­cious evening,” the let­ter stat­ed.

The PNM said the event was at­tend­ed by hun­dreds of mem­bers, in­clud­ing cur­rent and for­mer ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers, Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing Row­ley’s ab­sence, the par­ty ex­pressed hope that he would at­tend fu­ture events mark­ing its plat­inum ju­bilee.

“While we not­ed Dr Row­ley’s ab­sence as our loss, we look for­ward to his pres­ence at one of the events planned in cel­e­bra­tion of this, the PNM’s plat­inum ju­bilee,” the par­ty said.

Mean­while, for­mer PNM Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal ap­peared to be dis­ap­point­ed with how the PNM han­dled this sit­u­a­tion.

In a post on In­sta­gram, ref­er­enc­ing the PNM’s me­dia re­lease, Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal post­ed, “I have main­tained de­lib­er­ate si­lence on my par­ty mat­ters, with the hope that good sense would pre­vail! But to who­ev­er post­ed this cap­tion, con­grat­u­la­tions on mak­ing the UNC stronger and con­grat­u­la­tions on prov­ing how far you are mov­ing away from what our great move­ment was meant to stand for! Must you re­spond to every­thing?”