By Raffique Shah
January 11, 2025

It would be quite a thing if the leadership succession issue in the ruling People’s National Movement were to erupt into something akin to war, while the party has often been described as the best organised in the Caribbean.

I had planned this column before Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced his proposed resignation, and subsequently the naming of his successor, Energy Minister Stuart Young. That grabbed national attention and with it, controversy, before I could write. But that is politics for you—unpredictable in the most stable of times and immutable in the worst of times.

I had decided to write today on Dr Rowley’s resignation which comes with his retirement from politics at the highest level. My main point was set to be that leadership succession, in the former colonies of Britain, creates temptations that appear to people who have an inside track on such challenges, as greed and the lust for power.

The principal actors, who clearly are usually the most powerful men or women in whatever country is undergoing the process and rites, are hardly better than their dictator-type colleagues who hold on to power as if it were the oxygen for their survival.

In Dr Rowley came a politician—nay, a statesman—who would shatter the ceiling set by those who went before him, many of whom allowed themselves to be dragged into bitter battles for control or power. They clung to power as if it were life itself, but Dr Rowley seemed to have mapped out his 40-odd years in politics like a master navigator when he named his successor in monarchical fashion.

His party supported him unwaveringly through his roles—first as opposition leader after the 2010 PNM defeat, and then as Prime Minister for two five-year terms from 2015.

He dedicated much of the latter half of his political life as an infantry general who combined membership recruitment with deepening democracy in the organisation against the tide of creeping dictatorship in many countries worldwide.

Dr Rowley led the charge which gave every member of the PNM the direct vote for leadership of the party. Bear in mind that up until a few years ago the PNM elected its leader not on the one-man-one-vote system, but on a delegate system that had outlived its usefulness if ever it had one.

The party embraced its one-man-one-vote for its executive and General Council and leader. Ironically, it would be this freedom that triggered the rumblings that erupted when he announced that its parliamentary caucus, not the General Council, not the conference of delegates, would approve its new leader.

I have adopted a stance towards the PNM that I have applied to all political organisations in this country: their internal affairs are internal and should brook no interference from outside elements whether they are commentators like me or party officials from every back-street in Trinidad.

In situations such as this where the succession to the political leader becomes an issue, and I don’t know that this current imbroglio falls in that category, I find it important because it changes a prime minister without the electors having to go to the polls.

Now, I quite understand the powers of the President and the pre-eminence of the Constitution as in this instance. Equally, though, I don’t think PM Rowley intended to create any confusion by making his intended resignation a controversial issue.

What is required of him is that he, or the PM-designate, has in his hands letters from each PNM Member of Parliament pledging support to Minister Young. The only way this becomes an issue is if the PNM wanders out of tradition and votes against the party in Parliament.

After yesterday’s General Council meeting (I am writing before the meeting), those who are MPs or hold other public offices should have complied with the PM’s choice. These negatives notwithstanding, the PNM will hold together and Stuart Young will be called upon to lead the party into an election that many believe they could lose.

The only way that can happen is if party faithfuls desert the party in its hour of need, as happened in 1986 when the tide was clearly against the PNM. Nothing like that is happening now and the bright Young-man should be able to overcome the task set before him by his predecessor.

The little I know of Young and other younger members of the PNM—they will fight tooth and nail to achieve their party’s objectives and retain power for the greater good of the country.

Meanwhile, Dr Rowley makes his exit as one of the most distinguished leaders of the Caribbean, ever. One who had the courage to fight when it mattered, and to resign or retire long before people of the country ever tried to hound him out office.