Rowley: We won mandate

Addressing a news conference at Balisier House on election night, Rowley appeared to lose his cool when questioned repeatedly on the issue of his apparent disregard for those hundreds of thousands who chose not to vote, steupsing and asking this reporter: “you in politics...which party you leading?” Earlier, he declared, “Those who came out to vote, chose the PNM’s position. The programme of Local Government reform will be accelerated.” While saying he did not know the percent turnout, Newsday told him indications were that it was lower than the 2013 Local Government election. He was asked if that put a spanner in the PNM’s governance plans. “No, it does not,” he replied. “We are only allowed to count those who come out to vote.” Challenged on his disregard for the non-voters, Rowley steupsed and asked if this reporter was in politics, saying, “Which party you leading? You can only determine who has won on the basis of who has voted,” he explained. “You could analyse why others did not come out to vote and that analysis has been going on forever and will go on forever. But as long as people were not denied access to the polling stations, we could only determine the outcome by those who turned out to vote.” Asked if the PNM had failed to motivate voters, due to voter discontent on crime and food cards, Rowley replied, “We have done as much as we were able to in motivating people to come out to vote”. He said some persons may have not voted because they felt local elections are not vital or felt snubbed that they did not get something they wanted. He said a low poll in Local Government is a tradition, compared to the general election.

Pressed on the low turnout, he said, “We had free and fair elections. Persons who didn’t come out to vote were probably happy to allow the status quo to remain. There are people all over the world who would love to come out to vote to change the status quo. We in the PNM are quite happy to receive a victory and you can only determine a victory by determining who got more votes on election day.” Asked by Newsday if the PNM will do a post-mortem to analyse why most people did not turn out to vote, he replied, “Well, we are not bogged down by why they did not come out.

We are bogged down by the fact that we now have work to do to deliver on the commitments we made on the campaign trail.” “I’ll tell you one thing: We didn’t make any commitments in secret. All our commitments as to what this Government is going to do about Local Government were made in public - on live television, on radio and in newspapers,” Rowley added.

“So everybody who cares to listen and pay attention, they know what the Government is going to do and the fact that they have not intervened to stop the Government from doing that, we believe we have a mandate to proceed”. He quipped that he wanted to win all 137 seats. Rowley admitted that voters may have “a completely different expectation” as to what politicians can do for them, in contrast to the various limitations including of resources.

“So it’s not surprising that in a period of restriction as we are in now, that we should have some discontent.” He said while the Government can’t do all it would like to do, it will use its resources in the best possible way. Rowley was satisfied with the results, and was unfazed by any prospect of recounts. Later, Rowley told PNM supporters rallying outside Balisier House that the party had succeeded in this local election, declaring, “We delivered! We delivered!”