Munroe cuts ties with PNP

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

Three years after failing in his bid to be elected to Parliament on a People's National Party (PNP) ticket, Professor Trevor Munroe has broken ties with the party and has declared he has no further interest in representational politics.

"I am not a paid-up member and I withdrew from the executive (committee of the party) for personal reasons. I support the positive things the PNP does and I am critical, publicly and privately, about the things that I don't agree with," Munroe told The Gleaner yesterday afternoon.

The university professor, who dabbled in communism during the 1970s and was unsuccessful in his attempts to get elected to Parliament, suffered a 599-vote defeat to Dr St Aubyn Bartlett in September 2007.

Stopped paying dues

He remained a member of the PNP executive committee but gave up duties in early 2008.

Munroe also admitted that he has not being paying membership dues.

Under the constitution of the PNP, members are considered 'non-financial' if they have not paid their annual membership fees.

"If they are not paid up, they are not a member. You are only a member if you are in good financial standing. You may be a supporter, but not a member," General Secretary Peter Bunting told The Gleaner.

Bunting, however, said it was the party's policy not to comment on the membership status of individuals.

Meanwhile, Munroe, when asked whether he intended to renew his membership, said his main focus is to work with people in the political parties, as well as the private and the public sectors, in order to combat corruption.

"I am engaged in public service to combat corruption more effectively in Jamaica and that, to me, is a priority in helping representational politics to be more meaningful. I don't have any plans to return to representational politics," Munroe told The Gleaner yesterday.

A professor in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Munroe is the founder of the National Integrity Action Forum, which is an organisation aimed at promoting transparency within Jamaica's politics.

On Sunday, PNP Chairman Robert Pickersgill took a swipe at Munroe when he quipped that the political location of the communists in the old Workers' Party of Jamaica was unknown.

"That one, I don't know where that one is," Robert Pickersgill said.

No blind attitude

But Munroe would not admit to having left the PNP. Instead, he said his attitude towards the PNP would not be a blind one.

"I support the positive things the PNP have done, for example, the establishment of its Integrity Commission. I have expressed my disagreements with things I feel are not in the public interest. One of them is the failure to support the extension of the state of emergency," he told The Gleaner.

Some PNP members have said he was responsible for writing Prime Minister Bruce Golding's apology for his bungling of the extradition request matter involving Christopher Coke.

But Munroe said he has always believed and advocated that public officials who betray the public's trust must be impeached.

He also said that the records will show that he has been "very condemnatory and critical of his (Golding's) manoeuvring between September 2009 and May 2010", which represents the period during which the Golding administration refused to grant authority for extradition proceedings against Coke to proceed.

Munroe's achievements

• Rhodes Scholar.
• Founded the University and Allied Workers' Union.
• Founded the Workers' Liberation League, a pro-Soviet, Marxist-Leninist organisation in 1974. It was rebranded the Workers' Party of Jamaica in 1978 and Munroe served as its general secretary.
• Former senator.