In a world of un­cer­tain­ties, we are con­fi­dent that gen­er­al elec­tions will hap­pen in 2025. By a con­sti­tu­tion­al quirk, the on­ly per­son who will know the date is the Prime Min­is­ter as on­ly he has the pow­er to de­ter­mine that date. But even Dr Kei­th Row­ley may not know the date be­cause he may not be a can­di­date.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, Trinidad and To­ba­go elec­tion cam­paigns have cen­tred on the par­ty leader’s per­son­al­i­ty, racial al­le­giances cor­rup­tion and scan­dal. Pol­i­cy or the team’s ca­pac­i­ty has rarely been the fo­cal point.

Nei­ther the PNM nor the UNC has fo­cused on de­vel­op­ing tal­ent. The em­pha­sis has al­ways been on elec­tabil­i­ty. In­deed, the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal lead­ers of both par­ties have demon­strat­ed that they have no new ideas or pol­i­cy di­rec­tions.

The Prime Min­is­ter added to the un­cer­tain­ty dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the 2025 Bud­get de­bate hint­ing that it might have been his last. Was it a farewell speech? Will Dr Row­ley step down as po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, or as Prime Min­is­ter? The sub­se­quent de­ci­sion to “post­pone” the PNM’s an­nu­al con­ven­tion was un­usu­al and gen­er­at­ed neg­a­tive com­ments from par­ty mem­bers.

Dr Row­ley has hint­ed that he might de­part the po­lit­i­cal are­na be­fore, dur­ing the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions and again in 2020. What has now emerged is the out­line of a plan to anoint a suc­ces­sor. PNM mem­bers have re­act­ed neg­a­tive­ly to this idea, call­ing for the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion­al elec­tion mech­a­nisms to be in­voked. A lead­er­ship con­test is not due un­til 2026. Why was the an­nu­al con­ven­tion post­poned? A po­lit­i­cal mis­cal­cu­la­tion?

The Sun­day Guardian last week quot­ed in­formed sources as sug­gest­ing that Dr Row­ley would not be a can­di­date in 2025 and float­ed the idea that Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne, the cur­rent For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, was the like­ly can­di­date to re­place Dr Row­ley. Dr Browne im­me­di­ate­ly dis­tanced him­self from that re­port. Was this an at­tempt to test the pub­lic mood, or to cre­ate a dis­trac­tion to stymie the dis­cus­sions on the salary rec­om­men­da­tions of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion?

Dr Row­ley has not clar­i­fied his in­ten­tions ei­ther as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader or as Prime Min­is­ter since his hint. In 1973 Er­ic Williams “re­signed” but was “per­suad­ed” by wide­spread par­ty ac­cla­ma­tion to re­con­sid­er his po­si­tion. Dr Williams’s change of mind for­tu­itous­ly co­in­cid­ed with OPEC’s suc­cess­ful ef­forts to in­crease en­er­gy prices. No such wave of eco­nom­ic good for­tune awaits Dr Row­ley now. Is Dr Row­ley stay­ing or go­ing?

Firm pol­i­cy de­ci­sions that have se­ri­ous po­lit­i­cal im­pli­ca­tions are out­stand­ing in key ar­eas. In­fra­struc­ture main­te­nance has al­ways been a weak point, re­gard­less of which par­ty is in pow­er and cli­mate change has ma­jor in­fra­struc­tur­al and fund­ing im­pli­ca­tions. Mak­ing re­new­able en­er­gy main­stream is long over­due.

The sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance sys­tem de­pends on ad­just­ing the re­tire­ment age along­side oth­er mea­sures. The pub­lic ser­vice pen­sion pay­ments ac­count for an in­creas­ing share of the na­tion­al bud­get. Crime re­mains a na­tion­al prob­lem. The ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem must be re­cal­i­brat­ed to meet the chal­lenges of mod­ern so­ci­ety and the econ­o­my must be put on a sus­tain­able foun­da­tion, away from its de­pen­dence on nat­ur­al gas.

These are all un­ad­dressed ex­is­ten­tial is­sues. They re­quire trans­for­ma­tion and a dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion style to get buy-in from the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors. In­deed, it doesn’t mat­ter which par­ty wins the next gen­er­al elec­tion as long as the na­tion­al in­ter­est comes be­fore self-in­ter­est. The coun­try needs strong, com­pe­tent, com­mit­ted lead­ers and man­agers. Nei­ther par­ty is ad­dress­ing this weak­ness.