PNM political leader Dr Keith Rowley delivered his final speech as a politician in Tobago on April 19, telling supporters to reject the Tobago People’s Party’s (TPP) two candidates in the April 28 general election.
He believes the party’s candidates, David Thomas and Joel Sampson, are hoping to win the two Tobago seats so that they can join with the UNC to form the government to get internal self-government for the island.
Addressing a political meeting at the Goodwood Secondary School, Rowley said, “You are talking about two seats in a Parliament, where those two seats could decide who runs the country and you are going to let a man (TPP leader Farley Augustine) who cannot be trusted be in control of those two seats. I have nothing more to say to you in Tobago. This is the last speech I am making in Tobago as a politician.”
He recalled he made his inaugural speech as a politician on a PNM platform in Belle Garden during the first Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election in 1980 “and tonight I speak for the last time in Goodwood and I am warning you in Tobago, have nothing to do with anybody who come and tell you nonsense.”
Rowley continued, “You cannot say you do not know and you do not care because your children want you to care. Tobago’s development needs your caring. Tobago’s future is in your hands. It not in the hands of the government, central or THA. Tobago’s future is on the finger of every voter in Tobago and if you use your vote wisely, Tobago’s future is secured. But if you use your vote to make deals with people who cannot be trusted then what you get you take.”
Rowley, who resigned as prime minister on March 16 after some 45 years in public life, said Tobago had nothing to gain by siding with the UNC.
“There are 41 seats in the Parliament, two of those in Tobago. Yes, there are those who believe that if they control those two seats they can make deals, but I can assure you, tonight (April 19), that even though they are being encouraged by those in the university and those in the media that the deals that they are making might make good sense, you, the people of Tobago, I want you to understand something very clearly – you have absolutely nothing to gain by handing the two Tobago seats to Kamla Persad-Bissessar and the UNC. Nothing to gain.”
Recalling he had lost the 1981 general election to James Ogiste, Rowley told supporters, “Go and do it again. Go and vote for people who could hardly spell their name. Go and vote for people who struggling between green verbs and ripe lemon. Put them in the Parliament to go and negotiate for you.”
The PNM leader then endorsed the party’s candidates in the election, Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis and Ayanna Webster-Roy, both of whom are seeking a third consecutive term in office.
“The only people right now who are in a position to negotiate for the people of Tobago and development for Tobago is Ayanna Webster Roy in the East and Shamfa Cudjoe in the west.”
Rowley alluded to the often confrontational stance of the THA in dealing with central government. But
