Opposition People’s National Movement leader Dr Keith Rowley had every single reason to look as relaxed as he did to frequently smile broadly and dance, waving a balisier flower at the party’s Arima meeting on Tuesday.
When such actions occurred that night he had been exulting at a huge stretch of red-clad, flag-waving, high-spirited PNMites who packed the eastern to western carpark area of the Princess Royal Park, for the party’s eastern regional campaign launch.
Chairs were filled and members holding large flags started streaming in earnest around 7 pm. Some were sandwiched into one aisle, while the crowd was distributed across other parts of the carpark and verges, opposite First Citizens bank.
On the other side, of the compound mini buses that had brought supporters were parked. After Rowley arrived, he and PNM’s Camille Robinson-Regis surveyed the crowd, which included former leadership contender Pennelope Beckles-Robinson, with some pleasure.
And Rowley began smiling and kept on smiling frequently all night until after the meeting when he danced onstage with other PNM candidates. His approval of the gathering was also demonstrated when he went onstage for his address, waving the balisier to the strains of Bunji Garlin’s Differentology and briefly throwing his head back in ecstasy at the height of the chorus, arms open wide.
The PNM’s joy was the People’s Partnership woe that night. Battle talk was big and PNM’s platform was piercing. No amount of Kevlar could have saved the PP and Prime Minister from verbal arrows. Even the usually sedate (Arima candidate) Anthony Garcia, 73, and Mayaro candidate, academic Clarence Rambharat, whom Rowley described as the best of T&T, were in battle mode and the audience responded with its own comments.
The atmosphere and attendance were appropriate enough to validate PNM chairman Franklin Khan’s openers: “The election now start...the Red Army of the PNM is ready to do battle...this is balisier versus the rising sun.” “We have to mash up the roti,” a woman yelled from the audience. “That (UNC) sun dead,” shouted a man at back.
“Lock up Kamla and dem,” another woman suggested. Khan, introducing Toco/Sangre Grande candidate Glenda Jennings-Smith said UNC candidate Brent Sancho had no place in Toco/Sangre Grande and she would “put dong the wuk on Sancho and send him running back to Belmont.”
Jennings-Smith, whom Rowley predicted would “eat Sancho raw,” said UNC already had another “outsider” in Toco. Garcia said he indulged his passion for all fours and “for the first time a jack is going to hang a queen.”
Robinson-Regis, whom Khan said has promised to bring in the largest number of votes, took on the PM. She felt she was “easy to be blackmailed by every Tom, Dick and Kristian, she spending too much time in her garden weeding. What is Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s track record?”
Big audience laugh in reply.
Robinson-Regis continued with claims on substance, adding: “She has the gift of the gab, nothing else. She’s self-obsessed, look at her demands for the debate commission...she think the debate is a fashion show? “She want two green rooms—like she still in love with Jack Warner?...people liking her is the most important thing to her...Kamla, if you love children so much, tell us what you think about abortion?”
“She’s a hater!” a woman yelled in response. Robinson-Regis, reading from a piece of paper, said Persad-Bissessar couldn’t speak without prepared scripts and gave PNM’s reply to UNC’s “No Rowley” campaign. “We know Dr Rowley, K-N-O-W and we love him.” Rowley also gave his rebuttal to UNC claims of perceived “lack” of plans, “I have no plan—to tief government money, I have no policy to drink and drunk and vomit in the Government car or to smoke a plant-like and animal-like substances.”
“I defy any of them to put themselves up to scrutiny...straight to Golden Grove dey going.” As attendees left at meeting’s end, several women in red T-shirts said: “Kamla ears mus’ be burning tonight.”