Rowley accuses PM of pursuing ‘hateful and vindictive policies’

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of pur­su­ing what he de­scribed as "hate­ful and vin­dic­tive poli­cies", while warn­ing that her ac­tions threat­en Trinidad and To­ba­go's so­cial sta­bil­i­ty.

In a state­ment post­ed on his Face­book page, Row­ley re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was re­spon­si­ble for pub­lic crit­i­cism di­rect­ed at the Prime Min­is­ter.

"So the pub­lic ex­press­ing their open frus­tra­tion at her failed hate­ful and vin­dic­tive poli­cies are the do­ings of the PNM?" Row­ley wrote.

He al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment over poli­cies he claimed had neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed thou­sands of cit­i­zens, al­leg­ing that "bread" had been tak­en "out of the mouths of tens of thou­sands of peo­ple, in­clud­ing chil­dren."

Draw­ing a his­tor­i­cal com­par­i­son, Row­ley ref­er­enced French queen Marie An­toinette, writ­ing, "You are not the first. Go and ask Marie An­toinette."

The for­mer prime min­is­ter fur­ther al­leged that Per­sad-Bisses­sar "pos­es a great dan­ger to the so­cial and racial sta­bil­i­ty of this coun­try", and claimed she was "out of con­trol and needs to STOP!"

The Prime Min­is­ter has not pub­licly re­spond­ed to Row­ley's lat­est com­ments.

The ex­change comes amid height­ened po­lit­i­cal ten­sions be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion fol­low­ing re­cent pol­i­cy de­ci­sions and pub­lic crit­i­cism.