Af­ter an­nounc­ing that the elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the gov­ern­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) had cho­sen Stu­art Young to suc­ceed him, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley went to Store Bay in Crown Point, To­ba­go, for a dip on Mon­day.

Avon­nelle Hec­tor Joseph, of the NGO Is There Not A Cause, shared a pho­to on Face­book of her son pos­ing with Dr Row­ley, who was in black shorts, bare­back and bare­foot­ed.

She had ear­li­er post­ed a video of him walk­ing on­to the beach, which went vi­ral.

This was a glimpse of things Dr Row­ley hopes to en­joy as a reg­u­lar cit­i­zen de­void of lead­er­ship bur­dens.

Af­ter 45 years of ser­vice, he has earned the right, like any oth­er, to a peace­ful re­tire­ment.

To get there, he plans to give up the prime min­is­te­r­i­al role some­time af­ter Car­ni­val.

How­ev­er, choos­ing a date to re­sign as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM, re­quires more care­ful thought if he is to avoid any up­heaval with­in the par­ty pri­or to the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Cer­tain­ly, every­thing is not as hunky-do­ry as some would have us be­lieve.

Of the tens of thou­sands of PNM par­ty mem­bers, on­ly 20 were re­quired to vote for Young or Pen­ne­lope Beck­les for the prime min­is­te­r­i­al po­si­tion, with Young win­ning the vote 11 to nine.

While that very slim mar­gin is enough to meet the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ment for him to re­place Dr Row­ley as prime min­is­ter, there is no guar­an­tee that the wider PNM mem­ber­ship will vote him in as po­lit­i­cal leader.

Fur­ther­more, from re­cent rum­blings with­in the par­ty, there are strong sug­ges­tions that the PNM rank and file may wish to be led by some­one else.

This is where Dr Row­ley’s de­ci­sion on the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship is cru­cial, giv­en that any move to con­vene a PNM con­ven­tion pri­or to the elec­tion, could ex­pose ex­act­ly how deep the cur­rent di­vi­sions are with­in the rul­ing par­ty, some­thing that could po­ten­tial­ly hurt its chances of re­turn­ing to gov­ern­ment.

Se­nior par­ty mem­bers, in­clud­ing Fer­die Fer­reira and Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus, be­lieve Dr Row­ley has foist­ed Young up­on the par­ty and are sug­gest­ing that the wider par­ty mem­ber­ship be al­lowed to make a lead­er­ship de­ci­sion soon.

This pos­es clear risks.

To do so now cre­ates a re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty of Young los­ing the poll for po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, which would in­val­i­date him in the eyes of many as the right­ful PNM prime min­is­ter and fu­el the Op­po­si­tion’s po­lit­i­cal cam­paign for gov­er­nance of the coun­try.

Judg­ing from his words, it ap­pears that Dr Row­ley has al­ready cal­cu­lat­ed the risks and will not be go­ing the con­ven­tion route, opt­ing in­stead to re­main as po­lit­i­cal leader un­til af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion.

He told re­porters on Mon­day that the par­ty’s con­ven­tion would like­ly be at the end of Sep­tem­ber, at which time the coun­try would like­ly have al­ready vot­ed.

This would al­low Dr Row­ley to lead the PNM’s gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign as po­lit­i­cal leader and of­fer his full sup­port to Young, who is to be ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter ahead of the na­tion­al poll.

This ap­proach would al­so strength­en Young’s bid for po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship if the PNM were to win the elec­tion.

Need­less to say, in the event of a PNM loss at the polls, an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent sce­nario will be at play.

Ei­ther way, Dr Row­ley’s po­lit­i­cal days are now num­bered but, with the grace of God, he has many, many more beach days on the hori­zon.