People’s National Movement (PNM) MPs are denying they are involved in a move to oust Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley to make way for former prime minister Patrick Manning to return to the helm. PNM PRO Faris Al-Rawi chalked up claims of such a plan to “UNC desperation to create confusion in the PNM.” A poster is being circulated on Facebook page and bears the words: “No more Rowley, Manning for Opposition Leader... So say we. For the Party. For the Country.”
It shows seven of the 13 PNM MPs: Patricia McIntosh, Paula Gopee-Scoon, Nileung Hypolite, Joanne Thomas, Fitzgerald Jeffrey, Alicia Hospedales and Dr Amery Browne. There are also claims that two other MPS are waiting to see whether Manning will decide to run for re-election.
The poster appeared days after he indicated through former PNM MP Mustapha Abdul-Hamid he was considering seeking re-election for the San Fernando East seat he has held for over four decades and after he engaged in an emerging dispute with the PNM’s hierarchy. Under the Constitution, if the majority of Opposition members in the House of Representatives support one of their number, they can ask the President to have the incumbent leader removed and replaced by the individual of choice.
There is a precedent where the party leader and the Opposition Leader have been two different people. In 2007, former UNC party leader Basdeo Panday did not resign as Opposition Leader in Parliament despite Winston Dookeran’s being leader of the UNC, although that arrangement was shortlived and gave birth to the Congress of the People.
MPs in poster: Not true
All the people identified have distanced themselves from the poster. Gopee-Scoon, Hypolite, Jeffrey and Hospedales dubbed the poster ridiculous. Browne described it as nonsense. Al-Rawi said the poster was a fabrication by United National Congress (UNC) to create confusion within the party. In a phone interview, he said the UNC was seeking to tackle the PNM’s readiness to take government at next year’s general election but responded: “Their ‘cut-tail’ is booked for them.”
He added: “The fabricated messaging in the circulating poster echoes sentiments tried by top-ranking UNC officials. The PNM remains steady on its course toward taking government in the next general election. The UNC can kick, scream, fabricate and injudiciously spend as much as it wishes, the PNM will not be deterred.”
Asked whether all the PNM MPs were backing Rowley as their leader, he said: “I am absolutely sure that they are. What evidence is there to the contrary? “We are a party that has just beaten the UNC like a snake in every election in T&T and there is no doubt that the PNM’s team is rock solid.”
Dr Amery Browne:
“That poster was prepared by a rabid UNC activist who fabricates nonsense on Facebook on a daily basis. “Please don’t expect parliamentarians to respond to his emissions. He fabricates such things everyday and it is designed to cause confusion and division. It’s a sign of a government in panic and it’s not working but he persists.”
Paula Gopee-Scoon:
“I know of no approach to replace the political leader and I’m not associated with any approach. I really don’t know anything about it. “It may well be a ploy by the Government who is quite desperate at this stage. The Government has failed. With falling oil prices and a need to cut expenditure, at a time when they seem to be increasing expenditure in preparation for an election, they are probably grasping at every straw possible.”
Fitzgerald Jeffrey:
“I recognise Dr Keith Christopher Rowley as my opposition leader, as my political leader and wherever they concocted that story from, they can carry it back because I not part of that so-called list. Once they could put my name inside there, it means that story has no credibility.”
Alicia Hospedales:
”It is a sad day for T&T when people can lie about others with no remorse, defame their character and lift their head up high and laugh. “I refute every lie that has been circulating on Facebook and on 91.9 FM that my colleagues and I are ‘lined up and waiting’ to sign a letter for the President to appoint Mr Manning as Opposition Leader. This is such untrue... falsehood... disgusting lies. “In the PNM we have one leader, Dr Keith Christopher Rowley.”