Over to you Dr. Rowley...

Watching the marathon debate on the proposed Extension of the State of Emergency in Parliament over the weekend one could not help but notice the intellectual imbalance evident across the aisle. Comical antics of Colin Partap and the script read delivery of many others on the UNC team aside, the PNM still appeared to be bogged down in a mismatched fight in spite of the efforts of Marlene, Keith and Browne. This one sidedness is no accident and we need to look hard at and address it if we ever hope to bring balance to the House of Representatives as Westminster requires an Opposition.

Many of you are no doubt aware, much of the current political climate was shaped by Patrick Manning (post nineteen eighty six) and the actions he took in rebuilding the then collapsed People's National Movement. The results of his efforts are now plain to see, and that he chose to do so in his image and likeness has remade the Party of Williams into a cult of personality dedicated to himself and staffed by loyalists at every level of the organization. When the PNM speaks now it speaks in Manning's voice regardless of who is the current leader, and as his megalomania was counter balanced by a deep mistrust  of people of substance, he reduced the once great Party to an offering of political interns whose only qualifications for the job seem to be a willingness and ability to abide by the leader's every whim. Looking at what passes for the Party's front line in the Parliament now makes this point, and thinking people everywhere need to ask if this is the best and the brightest that the PNM has to offer.

Deathly afraid of anyone that could be perceived as brighter or more intelligent than him (and therefore a threat), at the height of his insecurity he (Manning) turned away men and women of the stature of Wendell Mottley, Desmond Allum, Ken Valley and Penelope Beckles to name a few, and gave us instead the likes of Hunt, Tishera, Browne, Morean and others. Now I am not saying that these are not people of substance in their own right, but I am sure that if they were even remotely politically aware they would have known that they were being used to allay the fears of one man.

A victim of this sad conspiracy, the Party limps along in Opposition, unable to impress and inspire outside of its rabid core and is rumored to be tearing itself apart from within. For every star that goes briefly incandescent (names like Faris Al Rawi and Amery Browne comes to mind) they flame out even faster as the reality of their real value, their substance and most of all their presence in the party is revealed for what they are, Manning loyalists, nothing more. Into this insanity was Dr. Keith Rowley dropped on the evening of May 25th 2010, and it is this that has confounded his every attempt at leadership and has made the once powerful and feared corruption busting MP into a shadow of his former self.

The Balisier can no longer afford to be a separatist society dedicated to either rule by entitlement or oppose by discord, and it must endeavor to become a political organization dedicated to the highest ideals and open to men and women of immeasurable caliber once again or fade away. He (Rowley) carries a terrible burden and he appears to be wilting under the weight, but if he wants a legacy of his own and he wants to save the Party from further crushing defeat he needs to destroy Patrick Manning and weed his loyalists out of the Party or surrender it to him (Manning) and walk away. You simply cannot be king in another man's castle and Dr. Rowley needs to learn this at some point. Continuing on in this vein is going to deliver only failure at the end, and the fact that he is coming across as weak and directionless is no one's fault but his own.

Dr. Eric Williams was a man of the moment and there is no escaping the fact that he understood the power of substance to change the world; regardless of your view of him these are the roots of the People's National Movement, and if the Party ever hopes to soar to those heights again it needs giants for leaders not lemmings and pawns. Only Keith Rowley could really know if he is the man for the task and if he is up to the challenge of reinventing the party; If he knows in his heart that he isn't, he owes it to the Party, to the country and to history to vacate the appointment, step down from the leadership and be on his merry way.