“How­ev­er good and pow­er­ful they are, all lead­ers have a lim­it­ed ‘sell by’ date. They get old, weary, and sick. They get out of tune with the times or anaes­thetised by their own pow­er. Soon­er or lat­er, they be­come em­bar­rass­ments to the peo­ple who put them in of­fice or those who keep them there. A leader that stays on for too long pro­vides a painful spec­ta­cle …” Fredrik By­nan­der and Paul’t Hart-The Po­lit­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gy of Lead­er­ship Suc­ces­sion in Democ­ra­cies.

The Prime Min­is­ter–the Ho­n­ourable Dr Kei­th Row­ley–has said he had no in­ten­tion of serv­ing more than two terms. In so say­ing he act­ed wise­ly and set a good prece­dent for oth­er lead­ers. A term lim­it serves to curb a po­ten­tial mo­nop­oly and rein in dither­ing eter­nal lead­ers. Lead­er­ship suc­ces­sion is of­ten dis­rup­tive, and choos­ing lead­ers al­ways trig­gers un­cer­tain­ty and con­flict among the mem­bers and elite of po­lit­i­cal par­ties. In the con­text of the po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment, can­di­dates for par­ty lead­er­ship may have con­stituen­cy sup­port. Still, they may not be in a very strong po­si­tion oth­er­wise, giv­en the ap­par­ent wide­spread pub­lic dis­en­chant­ment over crime and the de­clin­ing qual­i­ty of life.

Con­se­quent­ly, any PNM leader may be vul­ner­a­ble to los­ing the elec­tions, con­tin­gent on their abil­i­ty to shore up pub­lic con­fi­dence and de­pend­ing on op­po­si­tion strate­gies. The UNC must con­vince the elec­torate that it can per­form bet­ter than it did pre­vi­ous­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing crime. Nei­ther par­ty is pop­u­lar at present.

How­ev­er, the par­ty can mit­i­gate the risks if there is pru­dent suc­ces­sion man­age­ment. Based on re­port­ed state­ments by the PNM ex­ec­u­tives, cen­tral to the cur­rent dis­rup­tion is the non-in­volve­ment of the par­ty’s gen­er­al coun­cil in the de­ci­sion to se­lect the Prime Min­is­ter’s suc­ces­sor, notwith­stand­ing, it is the Con­sti­tu­tion which gov­erns the process of ap­point­ing a Prime Min­is­ter.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties have in­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments for lead­er­ship suc­ces­sion, and as al­ready in­ferred, suc­ces­sion does not al­ways hap­pen smooth­ly. Par­ty tra­di­tion, cul­ture, ca­bals, si­los, and so­cial net­works be­come dis­rupt­ed, re­sult­ing in high­er po­lit­i­cal risks for in­di­vid­ual as­pi­rants and the par­ty. The process is of­ten con­flict­ual and could be dis­as­trous, with in­di­vid­ual ri­val­ry, pow­er strug­gles, back-stab­bing, and mis­chief-mak­ing. Restor­ing or­der is es­sen­tial.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties are sys­tems, and like any vi­able sys­tem, they must be at­tuned to ex­ter­nal and in­ter­nal forces that will im­pact the elec­torate’s con­fi­dence and the elec­tabil­i­ty of can­di­dates. All sys­tems have foun­da­tions up­on which they thrive and peak at some point. Shelf life is short­ened if new blood and en­er­gies aren’t in­tro­duced. While change from a mori­bund sta­tus quo is nec­es­sary for sur­vival, it is wise to let stand some fac­tors un­der­ly­ing sta­bil­i­ty. The PNM has al­ways rep­re­sent­ed sta­bil­i­ty, which has served it well.

But sta­bil­i­ty is rel­a­tive and could mean sus­tain­abil­i­ty or cu­mu­la­tive rot. Giv­en the flex­i­bil­i­ty of youth, the in­creas­ing num­ber of flu­id and in­de­pen­dent vot­ers, an age­ing pop­u­la­tion and con­se­quent­ly, the demise of the die-hard “PNM for life” vot­ers, it would be wise to shift from ob­so­lete par­a­digms of race and eth­nic­i­ty in leader suc­ces­sion and pay no heed to the ap­par­ent rot man­i­fest­ed in state­ments such as “they just come in and want to be on top … they hadn’t done the hard work to build de par­ty.” Symp­toms of an an­cient con­cept of lead­er­ship that shad­ows the de­bil­i­tat­ing pub­lic ser­vice cul­ture.

Recog­nis­ing there are no longer bound­aries that lim­it the spread of in­for­ma­tion, par­ty mem­bers should con­sid­er the wis­dom of pub­lic state­ments that are not nec­es­sar­i­ly com­ing across as ad­vo­ca­cy for de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples in lead­er­ship suc­ces­sion but as dis­cor­dant cho­rus­es of par­ty ar­chaism, per­son­al­i­ty con­flicts, form and not sub­stance, that un­der­mine co­he­sion. They want out­siders to “stay out of their busi­ness” but pub­li­cise the par­ty’s mud­dy wa­ters.

While an on­look­er may be sim­ply a strong ad­vo­cate for good or­der in­her­ent in pol­i­cy ad­her­ence, he or she may rea­son­ably con­strue that the Prime Min­is­ter iden­ti­fied and pub­licly groomed a suc­ces­sor but giv­en the par­ty’s tra­di­tion­al mind­set and know­ing he was up against a brick wall, he opt­ed for a con­sti­tu­tion­al strat­e­gy re­gard­ing his suc­ces­sor. Lead­ers groom­ing po­ten­tial suc­ces­sors with the right val­ues and work eth­ic is a de­sir­able and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ple. Some­times, out of mav­er­ick be­hav­iour and con­tention cometh good.

Change is in­evitable. A wise per­son once said, “a world with­out rev­o­lu­tion is like the sea­sons with­out spring.” Free­dom was born from rev­o­lu­tion. If the PM’s strat­e­gy al­so hap­pens to es­chew an en­trenched racial phi­los­o­phy in leader suc­ces­sion, then his mes­sage is in­struc­tive. The PNM has a his­to­ry of di­ver­si­ty, but the ap­par­ent prac­tice, no dif­fer­ent from that of the Op­po­si­tion, is that it is OK to have di­ver­si­ty in the Cab­i­net and Par­lia­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tion, but not in the lead­er­ship. Yes! Po­lit­i­cal par­ties need a rev­o­lu­tion, a big dis­rup­tion to change the po­lit­i­cal ethos.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ty busi­ness is the elec­torate’s busi­ness

The ques­tion of who is the best per­son to lead the PNM or any po­lit­i­cal par­ty vy­ing to gov­ern is of na­tion­al con­cern. Af­ter all, the main stake­hold­er of po­lit­i­cal par­ties is the elec­torate–not par­ty mem­bers. Po­lit­i­cal par­ty busi­ness is the elec­torate’s busi­ness. It is the elec­torate that de­cides which par­ty gov­erns. As hap­pens in oth­er democ­ra­cies, it will serve the best in­ter­ests of po­lit­i­cal par­ties and the elec­torate if the par­ties will grow up, pub­li­cise and open­ly de­bate the achieve­ments and at­trib­ut­es of mem­bers vy­ing for po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship and de fac­to Prime Min­is­ter sta­tus, es­pe­cial­ly min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­dates who are ac­count­able to the elec­torate for their per­for­mance.

The Hon Dr Kei­th Row­ley has chal­lenged the es­tab­lished con­cepts and type­casts of po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship suc­ces­sion. He took a cal­cu­lat­ed risk, and as with all risks, there are con­se­quences. It is bet­ter the in­ter­nal strug­gles hap­pen now than clos­er to the na­tion­al elec­tion. No one is ad­vo­cat­ing rule-break­ing; suf­fice it to say that a sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion in po­lit­i­cal par­ties’ sta­tus quo is long over­due. It is their cul­ture and philoso­phies that ul­ti­mate­ly in­flu­ence na­tion­al poli­cies. The rot in gov­er­nance has a home in po­lit­i­cal par­ty cul­ture.

Rel­a­tive­ly smooth and or­der­ly suc­ces­sion de­pends main­ly on the des­ig­nat­ed Prime Min­is­ter whose sta­tus is in­ter­im, pend­ing na­tion­al elec­tion. The chal­lenge is meld­ing neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive forces to share a vi­sion and win par­ty and pub­lic con­fi­dence. Restor­ing or­der af­ter dis­rup­tion al­so de­pends on the ma­tu­ri­ty of the po­lit­i­cal ex­ec­u­tive to set aside in­di­vid­ual aims and seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­gin the par­ty’s trans­for­ma­tion to the re­al­i­ties of the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry.

What are some of the lead­er­ship at­trib­ut­es nec­es­sary to move the coun­try for­ward? Who has the vi­sion to pro­mote and trans­form the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that un­der­girds en­light­ened so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment? Who has the tenac­i­ty to dy­na­mite gang­ster­ism, cor­rup­tion, and abuse of chil­dren? Who is most like­ly to im­prove the process of do­ing busi­ness by cat­a­pult­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to the fore­front of de­vel­op­ment? Who has the ex­pe­ri­ence and busi­ness savvy to re-in­vig­o­rate and rev­o­lu­tionise the en­er­gy sec­tor, trans­form the econ­o­my, cre­ate jobs, and stem the brain drain? Who will bal­ance the busi­ness and po­lit­i­cal ap­proach­es to gov­ern­ing?

Who can best re­solve To­ba­go’s is­sues and trans­form the pub­lic ser­vice? Who will com­mand hon­esty in lo­cal gov­ern­ment, mak­ing it work for com­mu­ni­ties, de­mand and com­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty, en­sure fair treat­ment of tax­pay­ers and stop en­cour­ag­ing law­break­ing? Who has the in­tegri­ty and abil­i­ty to dam racism, pur­sue an ex­em­plary sta­tus in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions and at­tract cam­paign fi­nanc­ing–an un­for­tu­nate re­quire­ment? Who’s the po­ten­tial vi­sion­ary and trans­for­ma­tion­al leader to guide us to­ward a pros­per­ous fu­ture and pro­duc­tive qual­i­ty of life? Who un­der­stands that ho­n­our in pol­i­tics is truth and hon­esty in ser­vice? Who has demon­strat­ed some or most of those ca­pa­bil­i­ties among oth­er re­quire­ments?

Ac­cord­ing to the late Dankwart A Rus­tow, a po­lit­i­cal sci­ence and so­ci­ol­o­gy pro­fes­sor, in his 1970 ar­ti­cle, “No regime can avoid the chal­lenges of lead­er­ship suc­ces­sion in­def­i­nite­ly. The prob­lem of po­lit­i­cal suc­ces­sion is im­plic­it in the hu­man con­di­tion: it is posed by man’s mor­tal­i­ty and frailty. Po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship suc­ces­sion is not just an em­pir­i­cal phe­nom­e­non found across the globe. Giv­en the very na­ture of pol­i­tics, is­sues of po­lit­i­cal suc­ces­sion tend to be ever-present. While smooth suc­ces­sions can in­crease the per­for­mance, le­git­i­ma­cy and sta­bil­i­ty of a giv­en regime, bad­ly han­dled or failed suc­ces­sions can put a regime un­der se­ri­ous pres­sure and even trig­ger its very end.”