Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced that he will be step­ping down as Prime Min­is­ter be­fore the end of his term this year and will not be of­fer­ing him­self to rep­re­sent any con­stituen­cy in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Dr Row­ley made the an­nounce­ment at a news con­fer­ence in To­ba­go which he called to ad­dress mat­ters re­lat­ed to the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

He has been an ac­tive politi­cian for the last 45 years and had strong­ly sug­gest­ed dur­ing the coun­try's Bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment in Oc­to­ber that he would not be re­turn­ing to the Par­lia­ment when the last ses­sion ends.

The Cab­i­net is hold­ing a re­treat in To­ba­go this week­end and Dr Row­ley told re­porters that he would be telling them of his de­ci­sion there.

"I will not be of­fer­ing my­self again to rep­re­sent any­one ei­ther in Trinidad or in To­ba­go. Forty-five years is a long time and I would like at this time to say thank ap­pro­pri­ate­ly along the way to all those who have sup­port­ed my ef­fort," Dr Row­ley said.

He will over­see screen­ing for the To­ba­go West and To­ba­go East can­di­dates on Sat­ur­day be­fore the re­treat on Sun­day and Mon­day.

He al­so thanked the peo­ple of Diego Mar­tin West who have rep­re­sent­ed him from 1991 to now and said he will thank them ap­pro­pri­ate­ly when the time is right.

He then an­nounced his in­ten­tion to re­sign as Prime Min­is­ter.

"Be­fore the end of the le­gal lim­its of this term, I will re­sign this of­fice and go off to my fam­i­ly," he said be­fore bring­ing the news con­fer­ence to an end.

Dr Row­ley has been the coun­try's sev­enth prime min­is­ter, hav­ing first elect­ed in­to of­fice on Sep­tem­ber 09, 2015 and again fol­low­ing the Au­gust 10, 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

He has led the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) since May 2010 and was Leader of the Op­po­si­tion from 2010 to 2015.