Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s pend­ing re­tire­ment from ac­tive pol­i­tics at this crit­i­cal time in T&T’s de­vel­op­ment is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for sig­nif­i­cant lead­er­ship trans­for­ma­tion, not on­ly in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) but in the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture of this na­tion.

Yes­ter­day, elect­ed PNM MPs named Stu­art Young, a front­line mem­ber of Dr Row­ley’s Cab­i­net, as their choice to lead the Gov­ern­ment af­ter Row­ley steps down.

The Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP, who cur­rent­ly holds the port­fo­lio of En­er­gy Min­is­ter, has long been tout­ed as a like­ly suc­ces­sor to Row­ley.

The an­nounce­ment, at the end of a two-day Cab­i­net re­treat in To­ba­go, there­fore, puts an end to the spec­u­la­tion that fol­lowed Dr Row­ley’s hint late last year that he would be step­ping down to fo­cus on his fam­i­ly.

But even with the lat­est de­vel­op­ments in the PNM, the par­ty is yet to set­tle the mat­ter of its po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, with the par­ty’s con­ven­tion now sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber, and Dr Row­ley like­ly to hold on in that post un­til then, even while re­lin­quish­ing the prime min­is­ter­ship.

How­ev­er, it must be said that there are now rum­blings with­in the par­ty which sug­gest Young does not have the full sup­port of the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship, and this could come up when the par­ty holds what will be a crit­i­cal con­ven­tion ex­er­cise.

Young, who has emerged in re­cent months as Dr Row­ley’s heir ap­par­ent, now has to prove that he has the where­with­al to unite a seem­ing­ly frag­ment­ed PNM and to steer the coun­try out of the cur­rent chal­leng­ing pe­ri­od in­to re­newed pros­per­i­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and hope.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the PNM is not the on­ly po­lit­i­cal par­ty with lead­er­ship is­sues to set­tle.

The chang­ing of the guard in the PNM has led to calls for the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress to fol­low suit and to name a suc­ces­sor to Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who has been at the helm for the past 15 years, in favour of more youth­ful lead­er­ship.

The chal­lenge for every el­i­gi­ble vot­er now is to crit­i­cal­ly analyse the field of con­tenders, look­ing past man­i­festo pledges and plat­form rhetoric, to choose the in­di­vid­ual best suit­ed to lead the ma­jor task of tak­ing the coun­try for­ward.

T&T needs a leader with in­tegri­ty, hon­esty and trust, who pos­sess­es a glob­al per­spec­tive to rise above the na­tion­al­ism, re­li­gious fun­da­men­tal­ism, and iso­la­tion­ism that is desta­bil­is­ing so many parts of the world.

There is a ten­den­cy to em­pha­sise the pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence of prospec­tive po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, but of equal im­por­tance should be a will­ing­ness to pro­mote bi­par­ti­san­ship and co­op­er­a­tion and con­tin­ued fo­cus on val­ues, in­no­va­tion, cul­ture, di­ver­si­ty, and em­pow­er­ment.

An en­light­ened leader, who em­ploys the eth­i­cal stan­dards so des­per­ate­ly need­ed in this na­tion and who will lead in mak­ing well-in­formed and dis­pas­sion­ate­ly con­sid­ered de­ci­sions, is what this na­tion needs now more than ever.

Can Young, or, for that mat­ter, any­one else from the cur­rent crop of politi­cians pro­vide this type of lead­er­ship? Time will tell.