By Stephen Kangal
June 17, 2015
Expelled-from-Parliament MP Dr Keith Rowley and leader of the PNM is under political and moral obligation to clear the decks of those incriminating issues still hanging over him like swords of Damocles before he can be admitted into the Leaders Debates chamber to stand up as an equal to the Prime Minister and leader of the UNC. He must issue an apology to the Speaker of the House and to those MP’s whose reputation has been sullied by his deliberate falsehoods and fabrications.
His fabrication of hoax, Google denounced and Integrity Commission rejected e-mails imputing criminal motives on the Prime Minster and members of her Cabinet has left a deep stain and scar on his credibility and hence his fitness for political office. It has caused undue stress and agony on the Prime Minister and members of her Government.
In the process he used and abused the floor of Parliament as Opposition Leader to bring it into odium and disrepute by introducing a frivolous and vexatious matter that he knew to be untrue. It took more than two years to be resolved. It exposed him for his puerile and very irresponsible conduct and politically motivated behavior designed to bring down the PP Government on the basis of a pure, unadulterated falsehood. Such is his lust for flashing blue lights.
Dr Rowley also has to answer the charges alleged by Tobago East MP Mrs Vernella Toppin Alleyne in Parliament that imputed that he Dr Rowley had committed statutory rape on a minor in Tobago out which he fathered a son.
It cannot be business as usual for the Debates Commission because these accusations serve to disqualify him from being eligible to stand up against the Prime Minister who was an innocent and targeted victim of his falsities and fabrication. The debates will lack class and character featuring an antagonist suspected of having committed two criminal offences. We will be putting chalk and cheese together.
Mere leadership of a political party cannot be the exclusive determining criterion for eligibility to participate in the proposed Leaders Debate. The participants cannot be contaminated and blemished by unsettled issues and yet be given a captive national audience to preach to what they do not practice in real life.
Dr Rowley’s party is known to promise indiscriminately, hatch grandiose plans and programmes as well as to procrastinate till these plans die a natural death owing to non-fulfillment as did Vision 2020.
The simple fact is that statutory rape based on the age of the “willing” victim and Rowley’s age at the time of his tenure as a school teacher, has been downplayed in a very permissive society and excused by many in the context of unclear and confusing laws in T&T.
Secondly, the pro-PNM lobby in T&T are also ignoring the findings of the organization that should know, that is Google.
Some diehards are using the failure of the Police to conclude their “investigation” as an excuse or rationalization for fostering support for Rowley and creating uncertainty during the election. The verdict of right thinking people is clear: the emails were fabrications, as concluded by Google and the US authorities.
I believe that with an objective and non partisan approach to this matter the truth can be found. Under this administration where there are “clean hands and pure hearts” we need to have bleach and microscope to detect that condition.
Mr. Kangal,
I will certainly agree with you if these accusations on Dr. Rowley had been shown to be true. However, you are aware that the matters are still on-going and the case has not yet been completed.
In the circumstance I fail to understand why you have rushed to the conclusion that you have come to.
The society is looking for persons with more balanced views
While I concur with your comments. I realize that you are very civil in your disagreements with Mr Kangal. He can hardly be described as an honest broker in this discussion. He is more of a protagonist and disinterested in facts, truth and objectivity in this matter. He is clearly partisan, subjective and have no interest in the outcome of the debates.