Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter 

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

The an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day that he was bow­ing out of pub­lic life be­fore the end of the par­lia­men­tary ses­sion rais­es more ques­tions than an­swers.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany and Dr In­dera Sage­wan said Row­ley’s bomb­shell of an an­nounce­ment was his­toric, as there has nev­er been a time where a prime min­is­ter has va­cat­ed the po­si­tion be­fore time.

At the end of a news con­fer­ence in To­ba­go, called to ad­dress mat­ters re­lat­ed to the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), Row­ley said: “I will not be of­fer­ing my­self again to rep­re­sent any­one ei­ther in Trinidad or in To­ba­go. Forty-five years is a long time and I would like at this time, to say thanks, ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, along the way to all those who have sup­port­ed my ef­forts.”

He added: “Be­fore the end of the le­gal lim­its of this term, I will re­sign this of­fice and go off to my fam­i­ly.”

This came af­ter the PM said he would not be re­turn­ing to the Par­lia­ment when the last ses­sion ends dur­ing last year’s Bud­get de­bate.

Dr Row­ley is the coun­try’s sev­enth prime min­is­ter. He was first elect­ed on Sep­tem­ber 9, 2015 and again on Au­gust 10, 2020. He has led the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) since May 2010 and was Leader of the Op­po­si­tion from 2010 to 2015.

Ghany said the an­nounce­ment means that there will now be a fight for the top spot in the PNM, as Row­ley will have to step down as po­lit­i­cal leader go­ing in­to the gen­er­al elec­tion.

He said be­tween the time of res­ig­na­tion and the elec­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter will be “a lame duck” and that’s why in­ter­nal elec­tion for lead­er­ship, due next year, must be held soon.

“They can­not go in­to a gen­er­al elec­tion with the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal leader and cur­rent prime min­is­ter not be­ing a can­di­date. That is not vi­able. So that some­one has to emerge as the new leader. I don’t know how long they want to pro­long this but car­ry­ing lame duck sta­tus for eight months is not vi­able.”

Sage­wan, mean­while, be­lieves Row­ley “left the coun­try reel­ing” but raised many ques­tions.

“Step­ping down be­fore the le­gal term from the of­fice means that he will be step­ping down as prime min­is­ter of the coun­try. In that in­stance, a new prime min­is­ter will have to be put in place. We have nev­er had this be­fore so he will have to be the one to ap­point that next prime min­is­ter. That has noth­ing to do with the par­ty that has to do with the Gov­ern­ment which he leads.”

This is the first time where the prime min­is­ter will not be the po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty, she said, adding the main is­sue is that while re­lin­quish­ing pow­er as prime min­is­ter, Row­ley will be main­tain­ing pow­er as po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty.

Asked if she be­lieved the in­ter­nal elec­tion will be called be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion, Sage­wan said she was un­sure.

“If he doesn’t step down as po­lit­i­cal leader, he was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly vot­ed in, his term comes to an end next year, what is the mech­a­nism the par­ty could pos­si­bly have that will force him to step down?”

Ghany stressed the par­ty must have a leader and if not Dr Row­ley, then who?

“The par­ty needs to have a leader, an in­dis­putable leader un­der sec­tion 76 of the Con­sti­tu­tion. I have no idea who it is go­ing to be. We are hear­ing the ru­mours all around the place, all kinds of ru­mours around and I don’t want to get in­to spec­u­lat­ing about names. But if it is more than two per­sons and it is three or four as the case may be, then the is­sue of a run-off, if it is more than two per­sons and no one gets more than 50 per cent.”