RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­fused to ad­dress claims from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that their re­la­tion­ship soured af­ter she al­leged­ly or­ches­trat­ed for mem­bers of her then-Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Cab­i­net and House Speak­er to record in­to the Hansard that he and his fa­ther were rapists.

In­stead, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has trained her fo­cus on the le­gal­i­ty of Stu­art Young’s tran­si­tion as in­com­ing prime min­is­ter, call­ing on Row­ley to share the le­gal opin­ions he re­ceived to sup­port the de­ci­sion.

Speak­ing to jour­nal­ists from Guardian me­dia, TV6 and TTT dur­ing an in­ter­view which aired on Thurs­day night as part of his im­pend­ing de­par­ture from of­fice on Sun­day Dr Row­ley re­called a shared ex­pe­ri­ence with Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing for­mer South Africa Pres­i­dent Nel­son Man­dela’s fu­ner­al in that coun­try but said their re­la­tion­ship de­te­ri­o­rat­ed af­ter their re­turn to T&T.

“When we got there, we stayed in sep­a­rate ho­tels. There was a view­ing of the body. They take you in or­der of rank—kings, pres­i­dents, prime min­is­ters—and when they called for Prime Min­is­ter, she said, ‘Come with me. We went to­geth­er and viewed Man­dela’s body,” Dr Row­ley re­called.

He de­scribed the mo­ment as sig­nif­i­cant, giv­en Man­dela’s in­flu­ence.

“On the way there, we trav­elled in the same car. She raised with me the is­sue of the un­sat­is­fac­to­ry pen­sion sys­tem in Par­lia­ment and for judges. At the time, Chief Jus­tice Clin­ton Bernard was in the news, hav­ing fall­en so far be­hind he could not man­age his af­fairs. The Prime Min­is­ter (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) raised it with me. I said, ‘Bring the note, bring the bill, and we will sup­port it.’”

He said their con­ver­sa­tion then shift­ed to en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns.

Dr Row­ley said the re­la­tion­ship changed there­after, how­ev­er, as he ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of al­low­ing false state­ments to be record­ed in Par­lia­ment.

Ex­plain­ing what oc­curred then, Dr Row­ley said: “That Op­po­si­tion Leader, when she re­alised she was fac­ing a dif­fi­cult elec­tion, you know what she did? She or­gan­ised for mem­bers of the Cab­i­net and the Speak­er of the House to come to Par­lia­ment to put on the Hansard that my fa­ther is a rapist and I am a rapist.”

He re­it­er­at­ed: “Char­ac­ter mat­ters, and I want you to think about that. While there were any sub­lime mo­ments in South Africa, there were hor­ri­ble mem­o­ries here in Trinidad.”

He added: “If that was what you have to do to win po­lit­i­cal of­fice, then I wish to have nev­er been there.”

Not­ing his re­la­tion­ship over the years with oth­er politi­cians, he said, “Char­ac­ter mat­ters. I would tell you, I was very friend­ly with Bas­deo Pan­day, very friend­ly with Oma Pan­day, very friend­ly with Mikela Pan­day, An­tho­ny Smart, Sel­by Wil­son be­cause they were first and fore­most cit­i­zens of mine, pro­fes­sion­al peo­ple, we ar­gue about the same bill so I re­spect them.”

How­ev­er, he hint­ed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was not some­one he re­spect­ed.

“If your con­duct is such that I don’t re­quire to re­spect you, then I won’t dis­re­spect my­self,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Per­sad-Bisses­sar for com­ment on Row­ley’s lat­est claims yes­ter­day, but she did not re­spond to ques­tions re­lat­ed to the PM’s as­ser­tions about her char­ac­ter.

In­stead, she re­spond­ed about Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young’s tran­si­tion to prime min­is­ter on Mon­day, say­ing, “Row­ley must pub­licly re­lease the le­gal opin­ion he claims to have that sup­ports the anoint­ing of Stu­art Young as prime min­is­ter.”

She not­ed: “The UNC firm­ly be­lieves that Young’s ap­point­ment is il­le­gal as long as Row­ley re­mains the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal leader. On­ly if Row­ley steps down si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly as both PNM leader and prime min­is­ter would Young’s ap­point­ment be con­sti­tu­tion­al.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said: “It is an in­sult to the coun­try that Young, who was not even elect­ed as leader of his own par­ty, is be­ing un­de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly forced up­on the pop­u­la­tion.

“The anoint­ing of Stu­art Young as the un­elect­ed, il­le­git­i­mate prime min­is­ter of T&T is a coup backed by Young’s fi­nanciers in con­nec­tion with Row­ley. It is an act of gross in­grat­i­tude and be­tray­al to­wards PNM rank-and-file mem­bers who have loy­al­ly sup­port­ed Row­ley for over 40 years.

“He has be­trayed them by tak­ing away their right to se­lect a leader of their choice. Had there been a PNM in­ter­nal elec­tion, it is a fact that Young would have been de­ci­sive­ly de­feat­ed by Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. This is al­so a be­tray­al of the elec­torate.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said Dr Row­ley “has sold the of­fice of prime min­is­ter to Young’s high­est-bid­ding fi­nanciers. Any ac­tions tak­en by Young as prime min­is­ter, if his ap­point­ment pro­ceeds as Row­ley in­tends, would be il­le­gal and in­valid.”

Hit­ting out at Young, she not­ed: “Young should have some shame—he knows the coun­try is ful­ly aware that he did not earn the po­si­tion through com­pe­tence and hard work. Row­ley can­not sink any low­er; he has sold the coun­try to Stu­art Young’s fa­ther and his fi­nanciers. He must dis­solve Par­lia­ment and call an elec­tion. Let the peo­ple de­cide who they want to lead them.”