Rowley: Go out and vote

THE Prime Minister is urging citizens to go out and vote in Monday’s general election. He says the risk of covid19 was not sufficient to postpone the event or to dissuade most electors from voting. He addressed a briefing at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s on Wednesday and took questions from reporters.

Saying campaigns had gone well, Dr Rowley urged participants to obey health protocols.

“We expect it will be heightened a bit this weekend. There still ought to be no rallies, no gatherings. I expect there will be motorcades where people will be in smaller groups in the safety of their cars. Win or lose, he urged people to celebrate only in small numbers.

“There are to be no gatherings to celebrate. Do not congregate. Election victory or not, do not congregate.”

Rowley reminded people to wear masks but not below their chins.

“The virus is still with us. We are still in it.”

He recalled countries which had come out of a covid19 lockdown but had to go back in.

The PM said TT had not reached any threshold to postpone the election.

“The threshold for postponing the election is a situation where the virus is out of control or likely to be out of control in TT. That threshold is not met and is not likely to be anywhere near us.”

Rowley said the number of people infected is not the whole question, but rather where those numbers had come from.

“We have been able to identify most of those and the ones we have not identified are under active investigation.

“It is not to say the country is sick with the virus and (people) are running to the hospitals and turning up at the wards. At the GP (general practitioner) level, we are not seeing a large amount of people coming and presenting with covid symptoms.

“If we were underplaying those numbers and people were raging with sickness out there, they will show up at the hospital and at their doctor’s office and that is not happening. That’s why we are saying we are confident we have a good handle on it, but we are not going to expose ourselves to a situation where it can get out of control and there will be a genuine case for the election to be postponed.”

Rowley said scientific modelling shows voting is not an extraordinary activity, once covid protocols are followed.

“Taking out half the public service from coming out to work is more effective than persons in a line five or six feet apart going to vote.” He said we are living with the virus and can take precautions in all things including voting. “I hope you will go out and vote and don’t use the virus as an excuse for being a non-participant.” He expected those in homes for senior citizens would be unlikely to vote owing to the risk of exposure.

“This is the pandemic election. If I was the person who had asked for postponement of the election, you’d have had crowds exposing themselves to congregation to oppose that.”

Asked if he will be PM in a week from Wednesday, Rowley said seats in TT's past elections have been won or lost by the PNM by just one vote in Scarborough and Cocoyea respectively. “So, your vote is important to me."