Balisier Bacchanal

Sto­ries by Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The lead­er­ship of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is fac­ing mount­ing crit­i­cism over what some now see as a rift and are de­scrib­ing as a trou­bling lack of re­spect for for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and an ap­par­ent fail­ure to show hu­mil­i­ty to­ward long-stand­ing par­ty stal­warts.

The par­ty, once known for keep­ing its in­ter­nal di­vi­sions firm­ly be­hind closed doors, was thrust in­to pub­lic con­tro­ver­sy this week, af­ter Row­ley claimed he was not in­vit­ed to its 70th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions on Jan­u­ary 26.

The par­ty re­spond­ed hours lat­er on so­cial me­dia, say­ing an in­vite was, in fact, hand-de­liv­ered to Row­ley’s home in Good­wood Park, Diego Mar­tin. The PNM al­so at­tached a copy of the in­vite to dri­ve home its point.

Since then, how­ev­er, for­mer PNM min­is­ter Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal has crit­i­cised the par­ty for re­spond­ing pub­licly to Row­ley and in­flat­ing the is­sue. Then yes­ter­day, Trinci­ty/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is al­so came to Row­ley’s de­fence, say­ing the for­mer PM is “not known to be care­less with the truth” and his word “can­not be dis­missed.”

Robin­son-Reg­is added that this is­sue is big­ger than just an in­vi­ta­tion.

“It is about re­spect, truth and how we treat those who built this par­ty. It is there­fore deeply con­cern­ing that any am­bi­gu­i­ty should arise re­gard­ing his (Row­ley) in­clu­sion in an event of such his­toric im­por­tance.”

And while Row­ley is chal­leng­ing the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive to show proof that he did re­ceive the in­vite, gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings yes­ter­day ad­mit­ted to Guardian Me­dia that he could not con­firm if the for­mer PM re­ceived it.

Cum­mings said, “The cor­re­spon­dence did leave Bal­isi­er House and was de­liv­ered to Dr Row­ley’s res­i­dence. I don’t know what may have hap­pened in terms of re­ceipt of it. I can’t speak to that.”

He added that the process is now be­ing re-eval­u­at­ed.

“What we will do on our end is to make sure and con­tin­ue to im­prove our op­er­a­tions to make sure that things like this do not hap­pen.”

But Cum­mings said there was no in­ten­tion to dis­re­spect or leave out Row­ley from the event. In fact, dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tions on Jan­u­ary 26, Cum­mings, while on stage, said, “We say thank you to the man from Ma­son Hall, Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley, wher­ev­er you are to­day, we love you in the PNM.”

Cum­mings, how­ev­er, main­tains there is no rift in the par­ty and that the PNM is fo­cused on the peo­ple’s busi­ness.

Asked if the par­ty would con­sid­er apol­o­gis­ing to Row­ley if, in fact, the let­ter reached its for­mer leader, Cum­mings said po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les will han­dle any com­mu­ni­ca­tion with her pre­de­ces­sor.

But for­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford yes­ter­day said he was dis­ap­point­ed with how things were han­dled and be­lieves the new PNM ex­ec­u­tive could learn some lessons in hu­mil­i­ty and re­spect.

“The on­ly way to re­cov­er is that the lead­er­ship change their ap­proach. And the lead­er­ship is specif­i­cal­ly the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal leader and gen­er­al sec­re­tary. They must change their ap­proach in the way they treat their par­ty mem­bers, es­pe­cial­ly those of us who have served. And they can­not be ig­nor­ing and say, well they’re in charge now and they can do what­ev­er they want.”

Re­call­ing an in­ci­dent when Row­ley just took over from Patrick Man­ning, Ford said he was in­struct­ed to en­sure Man­ning was af­ford­ed all cour­te­sies and re­spect.

“We had planned a meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do, and Dr Row­ley said find out from Mr Man­ning where we should have the meet­ing. And Mr Man­ning’s re­sponse was, if he want­ed in the ocean, we will pre­pare it for him. He’s wel­come. And then we went down there, and there was a fa­mous pic­ture with Man­ning meet­ing Row­ley and I in the mid­dle. So, the point is, if an in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed, a fol­low-up call would have suf­ficed.”

Ford said the lead­er­ship must be hum­ble, par­tic­u­lar­ly in op­po­si­tion.

“And, there­fore, you would need the sup­port of every par­ty mem­ber. But if you iso­late some­one and so on, you’re just di­vid­ing the par­ty.”

He said many in the par­ty owe their po­si­tion and ti­tles to Row­ley. And he warned the PNM that Row­ley will not take dis­re­spect qui­et­ly.

“They have no re­spect. No re­spect. And you know Dr Row­ley is a com­bat­ive man. He will not stay silent. And he will re­spond.”

Mean­while, for­mer vice chair­man Robert Le Hunte told Guardian Me­dia he gen­uine­ly be­lieves there was no mal­ice from ei­ther Row­ley or the PNM over the sit­u­a­tion and it may have been a gen­uine over­sight. Still, he said he was dis­ap­point­ed the mat­ter was not han­dled pri­vate­ly.

“I think a short com­mu­ni­ca­tion di­rect­ly to Dr Row­ley ex­plain­ing what was done, apol­o­gis­ing for him not re­ceiv­ing it and just prob­a­bly try­ing to as­cer­tain what time it was de­liv­ered, who de­liv­ered it, et cetera, would have been prob­a­bly bet­ter than pub­lic dis­course.” Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James yes­ter­day sug­gest­ed that while the par­ty has big­ger is­sues to tack­le, this may have ex­posed a re­sent­ment the cur­rent lead­er­ship has for Row­ley.

“Row­ley prob­a­bly might be invit­ing that sort of scruti­ny be­cause he re­mains in the high­light, and he ap­pears to be mov­ing against Pen­ny Beck­les. He’s chal­leng­ing, se­cret­ly or qui­et­ly, Pen­ny Beck­les for the lead­er­ship of the PNM be­cause they’re think­ing he should al­low Pen­ny to be say­ing many of the things that he comes out say­ing.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Beck­les were un­suc­cess­ful, as she did not an­swer calls or What­sApp mes­sages.