WHEN ROWLEY BETRAYED MANNING

PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley betrayed his then-leader Patrick Manning 25 years ago and voted against the PNM’s nominee for President of Trinidad and Tobago. 

Rowley has finally confessed to breaking ranks with the political party that he would later lead. 

In making the admission, he has also solved the puzzle of how the PNM, then in parliamentary opposition, secured fewer votes for its nominee than its number of members in the House of Representatives and the Senate. 

In a media conference last week to advocate the nomination of Christine Kangaloo for the presidency, Rowley made the admission about voting against the PNM’s nominee, Justice Anthony Lucky, in 1997. 

He said: “When this nomination was made for A.N.R. Robinson, I was an opposition member of the House, and in conversation with my party, I did not agree with the nomination offered by my organisation.” 

He said the constitution makes provisions for a secret ballot, “for good reasons.” 

“When the vote was counted in Parliament,” Rowley said, “you would have seen that Mr. Robinson got more votes than the party that sponsored him.” 

He stressed: “You’ll realise that the person who is today leading the Government in the process could tell you that as a PNM Member of Parliament, I voted for the UNC nominee, A.N.R. Robinson. 

“And I was not the only one.” 

By the number of votes cast for Robinson, three other PNM legislators voted for him. 

At that time, the PNM, under Manning’s leadership, had 17 Members of Parliament, in addition to its six senators. 

The PNM did not remove the parliamentary whip, meaning that all its members were expected to vote for its presidential candidate. 

The whip, a creature of the Westminster system of government, is meant to ensure discipline and order. 

The year after the presidential vote, Rowley challenged Manning for leadership of the PNM, but lost in controversial circumstances. 

But he won the leadership in 2010, after the PNM lost the snap general election called by Manning. 

Robinson, although nominated for the presidency by the UNC-led government, placed the PNM in government in 2001, following an 18-18 electoral stalemate.