The Slow Collapse...

Campaigning hard to sell itself as a government in waiting, the Keith Rowley version of the People's National Movement is having a dog of a time escaping its own past and the current political leader's own questionable history is not helping in that regard in any way. Unease surrounding his hasty departure from Tobago coupled with his unwillingness to come clean on the matter, allegations surrounding the 'missing' ten million dollars first put into the public domain by his then leader former Prime Minister Patrick Manning, and the still unanswered questions surrounding the entire Landate affair have many wary of him as a potential Prime Minister.

Rumblings from within the party tells of a growing split between forces loyal to the 'PNM way' led by the now wildly popular Pennelope Beckles and the Rowley fronted cabal of Gabriel, Sinanan, al Rawi and Rahael. The looming showdown that is meant to identify conclusively who holds the power in the party between Rowley's new guard and the General Council is scheduled to play out in the party's internal elections for political leader scheduled for March of next year, and it is a showdown Rowley is reliably expected to lose.

Regardless of the outcome of that election, the party still faces the uphill challenge of marketing itself as a viable government alternative to rank and file Trinidad & Tobago, particularly to the politically non-aligned, to whom issues and track records matter more than personalities.  Instead of trying to 'slip into' government through encouraging splits within the ruling government the party must confront the shadow of its own past misdeeds and failure to reign in abusers, its chief nemesis in the mind of many a voter.

No one in the PNM is yet to identify how it proposes the billions of dollars stolen on its watch when it was last in government might be recovered, yet it is attempting to use allegations of corruptions against the current regime as a justification for a removal from office to distract from its own sordid past. Current political leader Keith Rowley's flip flopping on Calder hart does not auger well for his own credibility and, having told the nation in the Parliament that he warned the then Prime Minister of 'massive bid rigging and corruption' (his words) at UDECOTT under Calder Hart, to suddenly retreat from that position or to not be publicly engaged in the prosecution of the same Calder Hart through assistance to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau of the Trinidad & Tobago Police Service rings as an unpardonable sin. What was it all for then, abuse of privilege in a grab for power? What is the truth? Was there corruption in UDECOTT under Calder Hart as he then alleged? Or was it all a hoax? And can the party go forward with a leader who has taken two such diametrically opposing views on the same matter?

And what about the other issues and allegations of corruption? The list of flagrant abuses that was so legendary, so lengthy, it had to be condensed and abbreviated and came to be epitomized by one sinister transaction, the purchase of a flag for two million dollars by the then Minister of Sport, for which the then Prime Minister had publicly acknowledged that an 'error' had been made, yet from then to now no indication from anyone within the PNM as to what exactly the error was, how we were to get the money back, who was responsible for the error, who benefited financially from selling a ten thousand dollar flag to the people of Trinidad & Tobago for over two million dollars, and why the chief offender, the Minister of Sports himself was never fired, sanctioned, publicly reprimanded or investigated for misbehavior in public office?

Clearly something has to give and fast if the party is to return anywhere near close to its former glory, because, while there are many within the party who still want to sing 'Great is the PNM,' they are only too aware that, until some house cleaning is done and some fundamental things are fixed, the party is not so great right now, and the jury is still out on whether or not it can prevail.