Merle Hodge knocks campaignhttp://www.trinidadexpress.com/20150721/news/merle-hodge-knocks-campaignThe United National Congress’s “No Rowley” campaign has been criticised by activist Merle Hodge as well as former editor Rhona Baptiste, who posted an open letter to the Prime Minister on her Facebook page yesterday.
In a letter to the editor, Hodge asked: What does our “new politics” party, the COP (Congress of the People), really think about the UNC’s/PP’s (People’s Partnership’s) descent into the muck of personal vilification as its major campaign strategy?”
She noted: “The UNC/PP was voted into power in 2010 because throngs of voters trusted the COP to be the bulwark against political nastiness.” She then asked: “Has the COP now been so effectively neutered that it cannot even recognise such nastiness when it occurs? What a disappointment.”
Baptiste, in a letter “from one woman to another” addressed to the Prime Minister, commented on the No Rowley campaign and a number of issues.
In part of her post, she stated: “You (Madam Prime Minister) must ask yourself whether in winning an election any means justifies the end. For in the end it is not you as Prime Minister nor Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley who matters as much as a nation...
“Last evening on witnessing the launch of your newest strategy against the Opposition, one is reminded of how effectively your campaign used Keith Rowley to demonise Prime Minister Patrick Manning in those ads that highlighted the tensions between them back in 2010.
“It was a cunning piece of propaganda and many of us bought the hype at that time and we voted you in... As a mother and teacher... It should be clear to you in fact that the destruction of the personal character of the opponent, whether that person is Keith Rowley or Mother Teresa, is not what the country wants. What the country really wants is to hear hardcore solutions to our problems.”
The campaign seeks to characterise Rowley as an “angry arrogant man who has no plan and no vision” for the country. The ads, seen at norowley.com, use statements made by Manning at the height of his political battle with Rowley, as well as sound bites from Rowley doctored to sound as his responses to a number of questions on matters of national import.