DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

A clar­i­on call for uni­ty with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has com­pelled Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to con­demn those who have used racial grounds to crit­i­cise his se­lec­tion of par­ty chair­man Stu­art Young as his suc­ces­sor.

Dr Row­ley made the state­ment while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the PNM’s 69th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion held at the Lord Kitch­en­er (Ald­wyn Roberts) Au­di­to­ri­um at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) yes­ter­day.

The event, draw­ing par­ty mem­bers from across the coun­try, took on the at­mos­phere of a po­lit­i­cal ral­ly, high­light­ed by per­for­mances from so­ca artistes such as Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, Su­per Blue, and Voice. Al­so tak­ing to the stage were Isas­ha and Pe­ter C Lewis, who had per­formed the par­ty’s ral­ly songs dur­ing the 2020 elec­tion.

Ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence, Dr Row­ley high­light­ed the PNM’s role in fos­ter­ing in­ter­ra­cial sol­i­dar­i­ty, call­ing it a “shin­ing star” in T&T. Dr Row­ley, re­spond­ing to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ques­tions about the PNM’s sta­bil­i­ty fol­low­ing his res­ig­na­tion an­nounce­ment, sug­gest­ed she redi­rect her fo­cus to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in­stead. “Mind your own fall­en feath­ers,” he ad­vised Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“I want to say to all those who want to dip their nose and their what­ev­er else in PNM busi­ness, when you see the PNM cau­cus vote Stu­art Young to lead the PNM in the Par­lia­ment as Prime Min­is­ter, get to hell out of our busi­ness.

“And don’t you be­lieve that you can in­cite PNM mem­bers about who is our leader and the shade of his skin be­cause it is the same PNM mem­bers who be­fore that vot­ed him as chair­man of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment. So, par­ty mem­bers, don’t get tie up, don’t get tie up.”

Dr Row­ley al­so scoffed at the fact that race was be­ing used as a fac­tor to de­ter­mine Young’s suit­abil­i­ty for the role of PM. “He’s a Chi­nee? From Lal­be­har­ry Trace in Pe­nal?” he quipped.

He re­called that his first en­counter with a Chi­nese na­tion­al was Sir Solomon Ho­choy, T&T’s last colo­nial gov­er­nor, af­ter whom the ma­jor north-south high­way is named.

“We are not un­known to, or Chi­nese are not un­known to us. So, al­lyuh, keep al­lyuh fool­ish­ness where al­lyuh be­long,” he stat­ed.

Calls for uni­ty were al­so echoed by Young and PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings.

On Jan­u­ary 2, Dr Row­ley an­nounced Young as his suc­ces­sor for prime min­is­ter when he steps down in the com­ing months. De­spite some in­ter­nal dis­con­tent, with Pen­ne­lope Beck­les nar­row­ly los­ing in a straw poll af­ter vol­un­teer­ing for the post, Young and Cum­mings reaf­firmed their unit­ed front.

At the con­clu­sion of the gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House on Jan­u­ary 11, they ad­dressed the me­dia, with both af­firm­ing that Young had the full sup­port of all PNM MPs for the role of prime min­is­ter. Cum­mings, who was ru­moured to be in the race for Prime Min­is­ter, be­gan his ad­dress by quot­ing Psalm 133.

He al­so di­rect­ly ad­dressed Dr Row­ley, ex­press­ing the par­ty’s grat­i­tude for his years of ser­vice and ded­i­ca­tion, and gave the as­sur­ance that the PNM mem­ber­ship will work to­geth­er to se­cure vic­to­ry.

He end­ed with a quote from PNM founder and T&T’s first prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, who on Jan­u­ary 24, 1956, spoke about the melt­ing pot of cul­ture and ev­i­dent har­mo­ny.

He read, “That is the goal. These ob­jec­tives of the PNM, a mul­tira­cial par­ty with Eu­ro­pean par­ty mem­bers, with Chi­nese par­ty group chair­men, with Por­tuguese vice chair­men, with In­di­an par­ty group sec­re­taries, African par­ty group trea­sures, recog­nis­ing and in­deed wel­com­ing cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty ...”

Young al­so stood on the prin­ci­ple of uni­ty and in­clu­siv­i­ty, which he re­called was a proud pil­lar of the PNM. He said un­der his lead­er­ship, any­one will­ing to con­tribute to the par­ty’s de­vel­op­ment will be ac­cept­ed. “To­day, we wel­come all. We wel­come and em­brace every­one in­to our fold,” he said.

Dr Row­ley and Cum­mings both en­cour­aged young peo­ple to join the PNM, bring­ing with them their pas­sion and fresh ideas.

Mean­while, 14 peo­ple re­ceived the Dr Er­ic Williams Medal of Ho­n­our in­clud­ing posthu­mous ho­n­ours for the late for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Franklin Khan and Don­ald “Popie” Sturge.