Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts say the po­lit­i­cal winds are shift­ing with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s en­dorse­ment by the par­lia­men­tary cau­cus of Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to serve as Prime Min­is­ter when Dr Kei­th Row­ley steps down from the po­si­tion.

The de­ci­sion was an­nounced by Row­ley, who on Fri­day re­vealed his im­pend­ing re­tire­ment from the role.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James ex­plained that Young had checked all the box­es for Row­ley in his suc­ces­sion strat­e­gy, hence the de­ci­sion.

“In terms of knowl­edge­abil­i­ty, Stu­art Young cer­tain­ly seems to have a lot of knowl­edge. He is ar­tic­u­late on the agen­da of the PNM as per­son­i­fied by Dr Row­ley. He has joined Dr Row­ley in mak­ing Point Lisas the gate­way for Venezue­lan gas. He is ar­tic­u­late on the is­sues that have arisen and he is as ca­pa­ble as any­one else. The ques­tion is whether the gen­er­al body of the PNM is go­ing to sup­port that.”

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, James said he sus­pects the move would come with some rum­blings.

“There is go­ing to be some eth­nic trou­ble, I be­lieve.” 

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany la­belled the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to step aside and pave the way for Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to re­place him as an “in­ter­est­ing and risky” strat­e­gy but warned it could work against the PNM in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

Speak­ing dur­ing a live in­ter­view dur­ing the CNC3 7 pm news­cast, Ghany said, “At this stage of the game, the PNM is go­ing to be weak­ened by the fact that it is go­ing to have a dou­ble-head­ed ap­proach to the elec­tion. The Prime Min­is­ter who is not the par­ty leader and the par­ty leader who is not the Prime Min­is­ter—that is an un­prece­dent­ed sit­u­a­tion and they are go­ing to have to work out the mes­sag­ing around that cause Dr Row­ley is very clear about his im­pend­ing de­par­ture and he is very clear that he is not seek­ing re-elec­tion as an MP.”

Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad al­so ques­tioned the con­se­quences the an­nounce­ment would have on the coun­try. How­ev­er, she said it did not come as a sur­prise.

“The big ques­tion is how does the PNM base feel about this? I ex­pect the UNC base is not go­ing to be hap­py, nei­ther the Op­po­si­tion Leader and nei­ther the Op­po­si­tion MPs. But they don’t count so much as the PNM base go­ing in­to a gen­er­al elec­tion with Stu­art Young at the helm. I don’t think that will be well-re­ceived by PNM sup­port­ers, I don’t think in this case they will blind­ly sup­port the leader.” 

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath al­so not­ed that de­spite re­ceiv­ing par­ty sup­port, the move could shake the PNM’s rank and file.

“I ex­pect­ed they were go­ing to an­nounce some­thing by the end of the cau­cus be­cause it was not to talk about par­lia­men­tary mat­ters but rather PNM mat­ters. The par­ty will have to make a de­ci­sion in se­lect­ing their po­lit­i­cal leader. Whether the po­lit­i­cal leader will be hand-picked by an out­go­ing ex­ec­u­tive or whether the mem­ber­ship should be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to se­lect their po­lit­i­cal leader.” 

Mean­while, for­mer PNM Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Mar­i­ano Browne, slammed the de­ci­sion by Row­ley, say­ing it sets “a very un­set­tling prece­dent.”

“The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is not owned by the Prime Min­is­ter. It is not his to give or be­stow on a per­son of his choos­ing. Nor can he say he is re­sign­ing but not be clear on when that is. It makes a mock­ery of the Par­lia­men­tary process and of the peo­ple of T&T.

“Fur­ther, a par­lia­men­tary cau­cus has no au­thor­i­ty to de­ter­mine who should lead the par­ty. While the con­sti­tu­tion may al­low the cau­cus to vote for one of their choos­ing that di­min­ish­es the par­ty and its con­sti­tu­tion­al mech­a­nisms.”