Cabinet members defend PM over ‘jamette’ comment

Mem­bers of Cab­i­net have ral­lied in de­fence of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley used a deroga­to­ry term to de­scribe her char­ac­ter.

On Tues­day, in re­sponse to the Prime Min­is­ter’s claim that the head­quar­ters of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was built with drug mon­ey, Dr Row­ley de­scribed her as a “jamette.”

A jamette is a term used to de­scribe a sex­u­al­ly promis­cu­ous woman.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal was one of the gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to fire back.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said, “I want to say with­out reser­va­tion that Kei­th Row­ley is a skunk. Whether he’s in a jack­et and tie or short pants, whether he’s in his home, whether he’s in White­hall, he has al­ways been a skunk.”

Mooni­lal added, “And to make this sort of deroga­to­ry com­ments yet again about the Prime Min­is­ter, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, I be­lieve is dis­grace­ful, un­for­tu­nate and vile.”

Mean­while, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers is de­mand­ing an apol­o­gy from Dr Row­ley.

He told Guardian Me­dia, “To have a for­mer prime min­is­ter go­ing out there pub­licly and us­ing state­ments like that to de­scribe the cur­rent sit­ting fe­male Prime Min­is­ter of the coun­try is dis­grace­ful and dis­gust­ing. I guess it just re­al­ly goes to show he has noth­ing bet­ter to do and demon­strates his lim­it­ed scope and vo­cab­u­lary.”

Sobers de­scribed Dr Row­ley’s re­marks as “dis­gust­ing and dis­taste­ful,” and called on him to apol­o­gise to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, not­ing that the na­tion’s chil­dren are watch­ing.

“You have to re­mem­ber there are kids learn­ing about pol­i­tics, learn­ing with re­spect to so­cial stud­ies and one of the things that many of them are proud of and that they can see is that we are one of the very few coun­tries in the world where our top three lead­ers are fe­male.”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter al­so strong­ly con­demned the for­mer PNM leader, say­ing the re­marks re­flect a trou­bling pat­tern of be­hav­iour and a de­cline in po­lit­i­cal deco­rum.

In a sharply word­ed re­sponse, Padarath ac­cused Dr Row­ley of cross­ing a line.

Padarath said the com­ment went be­yond par­ti­san pol­i­tics and raised se­ri­ous con­cerns about re­spect for women in pub­lic life.

“When a for­mer prime min­is­ter ad­dress­es the coun­try in this way, it is not strength, it is spite, vul­gar­i­ty and a com­plete ab­sence of de­cen­cy,” Padarath said.

He ar­gued that in a so­ci­ety where many women con­tin­ue to face abuse and dis­crim­i­na­tion, po­lit­i­cal lead­ers have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to el­e­vate pub­lic dis­course rather than de­grade it.

“This is big­ger than pol­i­tics. Too many women in this coun­try al­ready en­dure dis­re­spect and hu­mil­i­a­tion, and in­stead of con­tribut­ing ma­tu­ri­ty or sub­stance, Dr Row­ley chose in­sult,” Padarath said.

The Cou­va South MP fur­ther crit­i­cised Dr Row­ley’s broad­er con­duct, de­scrib­ing it as a pat­tern in which he re­sorts to per­son­al at­tacks when chal­lenged, rather than ad­dress­ing is­sues of ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Padarath, the for­mer prime min­is­ter’s lat­est re­marks are con­sis­tent with what he char­ac­terised as a his­to­ry of con­tro­ver­sial state­ments and dis­put­ed claims dur­ing and af­ter his tenure in of­fice.

He al­so point­ed to Row­ley’s re­cent as­ser­tion that he was not in­vit­ed to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s 70th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, an al­le­ga­tion lat­er re­ject­ed by the par­ty, which said an in­vi­ta­tion had been for­mal­ly de­liv­ered to his res­i­dence.

“When even his own par­ty must cor­rect him, it ex­pos­es a pat­tern that can­not be ig­nored,” Padarath said.

Padarath fur­ther ar­gued that Row­ley’s po­lit­i­cal lega­cy is in­creas­ing­ly de­fined by con­fronta­tion and con­tra­dic­tion, rather than ac­count­abil­i­ty.