Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk

Af­ter serv­ing as MP for 33 years, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will not be screened by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) for the Diego Mar­tin West seat in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. In­stead, in­formed sources told Guardian Me­dia that Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne is set to re-en­ter elec­toral pol­i­tics and screen for the Diego Mar­tin West seat with Dr Row­ley’s bless­ings.

If suc­cess­ful in the gen­er­al elec­tion, Dr Browne, who is present­ly the coun­try’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, will re­place Dr Row­ley as MP for Diego Mar­tin West.

When asked yes­ter­day about his po­ten­tial screen­ing, Dr Browne re­spond­ed, “I will up­date you on this in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture, at a time that I deem ap­pro­pri­ate. Be ful­ly as­sured that I re­main keen on con­tribut­ing to the fu­ture of our coun­try and the par­ty.”

Dr Row­ley, 75, did not re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day. Both men have giv­en the pub­lic hints about their fu­ture with the par­ty over the past two months. In Dr Row­ley’s case, he hint­ed that it would be his last year of elec­toral pol­i­tics in Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber.

“I am now in my tenth year as Prime Min­is­ter. I too may be a swan. As long as I can leave here, hav­ing done the best for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, it doesn’t mat­ter when I leave,” Dr Row­ley said in Par­lia­ment last Oc­to­ber, re­fer­ring to a sim­i­lar state­ment by UNC MP Rush­ton Paray while he made his con­tri­bu­tion. “I don’t have a lot more time in here,” Dr Row­ley had added.

The PM said when he makes his ex­it, he would do so “with his head held high” and be proud to say that he served with cer­tain peo­ple.

Turn­ing to Bridgid An­nisette-George, the PM said, “It was a plea­sure work­ing with you as par­lia­men­tary Speak­er. I don’t know how much longer I would have in this Par­lia­ment. But I have done my du­ty, and I kept the course. I have run the race, and I look for­ward not for a pot of gold but for my fam­i­ly at the end of this rain­bow.”

It was not the first time Dr Row­ley sig­nalled that he was bow­ing out of the po­lit­i­cal are­na; in Jan­u­ary of this year, Dr Row­ley had plant­ed the seed of pos­si­bly re­tir­ing from pol­i­tics. While PNM in­ter­nal elec­tions were scrapped last month, with one of the rea­sons be­ing that it was too close to a gen­er­al elec­tion, Dr Row­ley’s term as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM does not end un­til 2026.

For his part, Dr Browne, who was speak­ing in the Low­er House dur­ing the bud­get de­bate, quipped, “I am not a fre­quent vis­i­tor to this House, but I once was, and who knows what the fu­ture holds.”

Browne, a med­ical doc­tor, was first elect­ed as an MP for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral in 2007 and was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment in No­vem­ber of 2007. Dr Browne would con­test and win the seat a sec­ond time in May 2010, serv­ing un­til 2015. He served as an MP for eight years—three in gov­ern­ment and five in op­po­si­tion.

In 2020, af­ter serv­ing as T&T’s am­bas­sador to Brazil, he was ap­point­ed to the Sen­ate and now holds his present min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio.

Fol­low­ing Dr Row­ley’s state­ments in Par­lia­ment, po­ten­tial can­di­dates in the par­ty were spot­light­ed for lead­er­ship af­ter his ex­it, among them En­er­gy Min­is­ter and chair­man of the PNM Stu­art Young, SC, Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice and gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the PNM Fos­ter Cum­mings, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pene­lope Beck­les, and Dr Browne.

In that group, on­ly Young act­ed as Prime Min­is­ter dur­ing Dr Row­ley’s ab­sence from the coun­try. How­ev­er, all MPs polled at the time had said there was no va­can­cy for the post of po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty. As the par­ty be­gan ad­di­tion­al screen­ing last week for the gen­er­al elec­tion, it al­ready has 32 con­firmed can­di­dates for 41 con­stituen­cies, and there have been some no­tice­able shifts. The MPs for Laven­tille East and West—Adri­an Leonce and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, re­spec­tive­ly—are out of con­test­ing the 2025 elec­tion. In the case of Hinds, he was re­placed by at­tor­ney Ka­reem Mar­celle as the PNM can­di­date for Laven­tille West. In Leonce’s case, even though he was un­op­posed, he did not show up for his sched­uled screen­ing last Mon­day, and the rea­sons put for­ward were fam­i­ly is­sues.

Af­ter a five-year term as MP, Stephen Mc Clashie is out as MP for La Brea. The PNM has not said when they will have screen­ing for its re­main­ing nine seats.

Dr Row­ley’s po­lit­i­cal ca­reer

Dr Row­ley first ran for po­lit­i­cal of­fice in 1981, where he con­test­ed the To­ba­go West seat. To date, Dr Row­ley has the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the on­ly PNM can­di­date to have con­test­ed a seat in a gen­er­al elec­tion in both To­ba­go and Trinidad.

He is a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the Par­lia­ment of T&T, where he has rep­re­sent­ed the Diego Mar­tin con­stituen­cy since 1991 hav­ing been re-elect­ed in 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2010, 2015 and 2020.

Dr Row­ley first served in Par­lia­ment as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor from 1987-1990. He lat­er served at the Cab­i­net lev­el, hold­ing, at var­i­ous times, the port­fo­lios of Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Ma­rine Re­sources; Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment; Min­is­ter of Hous­ing; Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try; Gov­er­nor of the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB); T&T’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gov­er­nor of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB).

Fol­low­ing the PNM’s de­feat in the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion, Dr Row­ley was ap­point­ed Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and was elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM in 2010.

On Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015, Dr Row­ley led the PNM to a gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry to be­come the sev­enth Prime Min­is­ter of T&T. Dr Row­ley was re-elect­ed to serve as Prime Min­is­ter on Au­gust 10, 2020, af­ter win­ning the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.–Ex­tract­ed from the Par­lia­ment web­site.