Is this Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s last term of of­fice, as per a sig­nal he gave some time ago? Then there was al­so an in­di­ca­tion from him of a de­sire to go look af­ter his an­i­mals and pur­sue a farm­ing ca­reer in Ma­son Hall af­ter two terms. But has he done like an­oth­er fa­mous To­ba­go man, who changed his mind from “go­ing back to plant peas in To­ba­go,” the pull of pow­er at the cen­tre be­ing too strong a force to let go of?

Is it pos­si­ble that Dr Row­ley is lay­ing down la­glee, that sticky sub­stance that ac­cu­mu­lates on trees, to catch as­pi­rants whose am­bi­tions to hold the pow­er may be run­ning away with them? Is it his in­ten­tion to trap them as they make their play for the gold­en throne of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment? Such a move al­so has his­toric an­tecedents with­in the cur­rent rul­ing par­ty, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams hav­ing set down the tem­plate for such cun­ning po­lit­i­cal shifts.

It is al­so pos­si­ble that PM Row­ley, un­der­stand­ing the cir­cum­stances of the pe­ri­od in which the PNM can be made vul­ner­a­ble, or in­deed more at­trac­tive in the gen­er­al elec­tion to come, with or with­out his name on the bal­lot, is con­tem­plat­ing the fu­ture.

As far as it is known pub­licly, there are no por­tend­ing or ex­ist­ing chal­lengers mak­ing a play on his/her own for Dr Row­ley’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship and by ex­ten­sion, to be prime min­is­ter. The name which has some cur­ren­cy for lead­er­ship is that be­ing pro­posed by oth­ers through spec­u­la­tion. But as we know, po­lit­i­cal arith­metic is far more com­pli­cat­ed than that learnt in pri­ma­ry school.

If, there­fore, Dr Row­ley is in­tent on keep­ing to a sug­ges­tion that af­ter a life as a ge­ol­o­gist and a high pro­file politi­cian, his boy­hood al­lure of farm­ing can once again be his pur­suit, his fi­nal de­ci­sion on such a pos­si­bil­i­ty may be­come clear as the en­er­gy to gen­er­al elec­tions in­ten­si­fies; and that is dif­fer­ent from an in­cum­bent throw­ing out in­di­ca­tions de­signed to “set up’ the op­po­si­tion par­ties.

As is well known, the art and in­ter­weav­ing of cam­paign elec­tion­eer­ing are nev­er sim­ple. On oc­ca­sion, the me­dia are used by gov­ern­ments and op­po­si­tion par­ties of cre­at­ing spec­u­la­tion about pos­si­ble suc­ces­sors and out­comes. That Stu­art Young’s name is be­ing ped­dled as a pos­si­ble suc­ces­sor to Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley is not strange.

But is he, Young, too much of a “John­ny-come-late­ly,” with­out the right so­cio-eth­nic back­ground and po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry to be at­trac­tive to the PNM’s sup­port base? Is there a sleep­er in the hole who is wait­ing to be pro­claimed and anoint­ed by Row­ley? Or is a trap be­ing set for over-am­bi­tious wannabes to show their hands as like­ly chal­lengers for the throne? Pol­i­tics is bru­tal and de­cep­tive, not an en­ter­prise for the faint of heart and mind.

In ad­di­tion to all of the above and more, the un­fold­ing of the pol­i­tics, the han­dling of crime, or any sig­nif­i­cant at­tempt to en­gi­neer eco­nom­ic growth pos­si­bil­i­ties over the next 12-plus months will sure­ly present clues as to whether there will be a need for PM Row­ley to be re­tained for the crit­i­cal elec­tion, or whether he is like­ly to be dead weight on the PNM’s chances of be­ing re­turned to of­fice.