The Opposition People’s National Movement will attend Parliament and defend itself against Government’s upcoming motion of censure against leader Dr Keith Rowley concerning the E-mailgate issue, for which Government is seeking to suspend Rowley from Parliament, PNM PRO Faris Al-Rawi says.
He said so yesterday as he responded to various aspects of last Sunday’s address by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the United National Congress’ 26th anniversary celebrations. He was particularly critical of her explanation of her failure to give an election date.
On the Emailgate matter, the PM said she had received several expert opinions that the e-mails which Rowley displayed in Parliament in May 2013 were fake.
Rowley had displayed the e-mails, purportedly written by senior government officials, in relation to an alleged conspiracy to bug the office of the DPP and a plot against a T&T Guardian reporter following publication of the Section 34 matter.
But during her address on Sunday, the PM said the experts found they did not match anything in the e-mail accounts of the Government officials named and Government would move a motion of censure against him and seek to suspend him from Parliament for abusing the forum. The PM also again called for the police to give the results of the probe on the issue.
Yesterday, Al-Rawi said: “We have had no caucus on the issue and I am not a member of the Lower House but I am confident we will defend our position.
“The Government is entitled to move a motion of censure against Dr Rowley. This is very different from the recent nonsensical motion of no confidence in the Opposition Leader.
“Motions of censure have been moved and debated in Parliament and such a motion is one in which a special result can happen, in this instance, suspension from the Parliament.
“This is similar to the motion against MP Patrick Manning which saw him take to the streets after he was suspended.
“However, no-confidence motions against the Opposition Leader have never materialised in T&T and these have failed the Commonwealth parliamentary experience, as there is no constitutional sanction, material outcome or penalty against the Opposition Leader, who is mainly a minority voice in the Parliament. So there’s a stark difference between the two.”
Al-Rawi said the PM’s move was simply because the “UNC is in distraction mode and desperate for political survival. It’s expected the Government will pass this motion as they have the (26) numbers in Parliament to do so but the PNM will defend itself and its leader’s call for a probe into E-mailgate and the substance of this.”
Al-Rawi said the real tragedy in the scenario was that Parliament would be dissolved no later than June 17 and there could have been better business to be done on the people’s behalf but he said the Emailgate issue was far from over.
While the UNC had at the time said it would have been an easy investigation, Al-Rawi said it was conspicuous that it had taken the police, Integrity Commission and Google over two years to “even scratch the surface of the matter.”
He added: “It’s only when the Police Service and Integrity Commission produce their reports into the substance of these allegations that Emailgate will begin to be over.
“Dr Rowley himself, in piloting his motion in Parliament on the issue, had pointed to irregularities in the form of the documentation and asked for the substance to be the core point of the investigation.
“It is conspicuous that there’s been no refutation by the DPP in relation to wider newspaper coverage of the discovery of spy equipment in the DPP’s office. This is only one example of how important a probe into the substance of the matter is.”
On Persad-Bissessar’s failure to call an election date, Al-Rawi said surprisingly she seems to “prefer abandoning her platform promises and is now asking T&T to accept the most nebulous statement possible when she says she will call elections when constitutionally due.
“Under the Constitution, a general election can be called any day within the five years of the Parliament life and it is only when an election is not called, the prescription for the three-month extension after the first sitting of Parliament kicks in.
“T&T is in no better a position to understand when an election will be held and the PNM wishes to demonstrate the PM’s gross inconsistency between her promises and platitudes as against the cold facts that there has been no constitutional reform of the type advocated by the PM.”
CoP: Case still open
The T&T Guardian yesterday contacted the Police Service for an update on the police analysis of the Google information investigating officers received on Emailgate, what results the entire Emailgate probe had revealed and what of the opinion of those authorities of which the PM spoke and if the police factored this in.
In response to these questions, communications officer Ellen Lewis said: “The police investigation into what is being termed 'E-mailgate' has not yet concluded.
“The Commissioner of Police has directed the DCP Crime, Glen Hackett, to make a public statement on the outcome of the investigation when the matter has been brought to a close.
The commissioner is unable to speak to any other matter.”