THE EDITOR: AS controversial as it may seem, the real winner of the 2023 local government elections has to be the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) and its political leader and Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley.
Wait, before some of you steups and cuss, let me explain. For the PNM to maintain the status quo in the election battling against an array of foes is nothing short of a remarkable feat. The combined opposing force was nit-picking, vociferous and persistent in drumming up anti-PNM rhetoric at any misfortune facing citizens. The Opposition, United National Congress (UNC), was raking up mud and freely pelting it at Dr Rowley and the PNM at their Monday Night Forum, the Wednesday Pavement meetings and the Sunday morning media conference. The UNC was playing the politics as some political parties do, by being constantly in the face of the public spewing negative propaganda against their foes.
Apart from the UNC, darts and arrows were coming from the MSJ, NTA, ILP, PEP, the OWTU, radio talk show hosts and callers, some civil society groups, social media, newspaper columnists and editorial writers. While these groups had negligible electoral clout they were noisy and boisterous bordering on being of nuisance value. The PNM also faced a media which, in faithfully reporting Opposition “news” from the hustings, did not bother to distinguish fact from fiction as they pummelled the Government at every turn. The media turned on its head the old dictum – when in doubt, leave out.
The Opposition UNC supplemented their attack on Rowley with blatant lies telling their supporters that the PNM planned to introduce an inheritance tax. They did not support local government reform and vowed to rescind it whenever they were voted into office. And as if that was not enough, the UNC welcomed back to its fold Austin Jack Warner and Gary Griffith as political ammunition against Dr Rowley.
Tobago then joined the fray as if in a tag team, with Chief Secretary Farley Augustine linking Dr Rowley and others in an elaborate mischievous plot leaked by a whistleblower who now has second thoughts. Augustine’s allegations against Dr Rowley were reminiscent to the 2013 Vernella Alleyne-Toppin saga in the House of Representatives hatched by the People’s Partnership government to smear Dr Rowley in time for the approaching elections.
In all this, the opposition forces ignored the fact that the PNM came to office in 2015 when the economy was at a low point with limited financial resources. Dr Rowley and his ministers renegotiated oil and gas contracts with oil companies which boosted the exchequer. As this was stabilising in came covid19. Money had to be used to fight the pandemic: provide social support to the vulnerable, avoid the retrenchment of public servants and teachers and steering the country to a safe place. As covid19 declined unusual rain and unprecedented flooding covered the land taking its toll on the already fragile infrastructure. Clearly, the PNM faithful understood the problem; they circled the wagons and defende
