Kamla: Did PM Rowley Deliberately Sabotage International Observers Mission to T&T?
By now you may have seen a series of letters from both the Commonwealth and Caricom Secretaries-General to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Foreign Affairs Minister, Dennis Moses.
They deal with the issue of Election Observers for last week’s General Elections in T&T. Last month, I had asked PM Rowley to formally invite these observer teams to ensure we had free and fair elections.
He later claimed that both organizations were unable to afford the cost of the mandatory State 14-day Covid-19 quarantine. He had also bluntly refused to provide evidence to prove his claim.
Now, these letters show that both organizations had in fact indicated otherwise. They note that Minister Moses had kept delaying giving an answer on the ‘focal point’ when repeatedly asked to so do to by the respective Caricom and Commonwealth authorities.
What all of this essentially suggests is that the Rowley Government deliberately frustrated and sabotaged these crucial Observer teams via questionable delays and stalling tactics, to prevent them from coming to T&T.
It worked, and the elections proceeded with a host of serious irregularities and discrepancies that were, up to yesterday, under official review. Notably, PM Rowley knew fully well that this election year in T&T would be conducted during the unprecedented Coronavirus pandemic.
He therefore should have made all necessary arrangements to accommodate these delegations very early on in the year. He refused to do so, using Covid-19 as a convenient excuse, and then went as far as to blatantly deceive the population.
PM Rowley must now say—WHY? He MUST explain his role in this apparent sinister move by his Government to undermine and consequently seriously compromise our democratic election process, which is now tainted and cannot be truly deemed as to have been free and fair. Citizens deserve no less than truth from him for once!
Stay safe and God bless.