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Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Analysts say PM ‘testing political waters’ with swan song to Parliament

by

Chester Sambrano
122 days ago
20241012
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley during the 2025 Budget debate in Parliament on Thursday.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley during the 2025 Budget debate in Parliament on Thursday.

COURTESY:OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENT

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley told the Par­lia­ment that he did not know how long he would re­main in pol­i­tics but had done his du­ty to the coun­try.

At the very end of his con­tri­bu­tion to the Bud­get de­bate on Thurs­day, Row­ley al­lud­ed to the ap­par­ent par­lia­men­tary swan song (fi­nal per­for­mance or ac­tiv­i­ty of a per­son’s ca­reer) de­liv­ered by Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray when he spoke on Mon­day.

“I am now in my tenth year as Prime Min­is­ter, I too may be a swan. But ladies and gen­tle­men, col­leagues in this house as long as I could leave here hav­ing done the best for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go it doesn’t mat­ter when I leave, but I’ll leave here with my head held high,” he said.

He al­so in­di­cat­ed to House Speak­er Brigid An­nis­sette-George that it had been a plea­sure work­ing with her as par­lia­men­tary Speak­er.

“I don’t know how much longer I will have in this Par­lia­ment but I have done my du­ty, I have kept the course, I have run the race and I look for­ward not for a pot of gold but for my fam­i­ly at the end of this rain­bow,” he said.

In as­sess­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ments yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst, Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said that as a politi­cian Row­ley may be test­ing the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal wa­ters.

“Politi­cians are a fun­ny kind of peo­ple, they throw things out­side there not nec­es­sar­i­ly be­cause they want to have the right an­swer but they throw it out there to see what feed­back it gets and de­pend­ing on the feed­back that will then dri­ve them to make cer­tain de­ci­sions,” he said.

A sim­i­lar view was shared by an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James, who felt that as Prime Min­is­ter, Row­ley should have been more clear in what he was try­ing to say.

He too guessed that the Prime Min­is­ter could be on some­what of a po­lit­i­cal fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion.

“It can al­so be that he was look­ing to draw out the pos­si­ble hope­fuls, those who are like­ly to want to re­place him,” James said.

But that aside the ques­tion of whether the Prime Min­is­ter was set­ting the tone for a gen­er­al elec­tion arose.

Ra­goonath said it was a strong pos­si­bil­i­ty as well that the polls could be soon­er rather than lat­er.

He said cer­tain things are very telling for ex­am­ple the PNM (Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment) has al­ready start­ed se­lect­ing can­di­dates for con­stituen­cies cur­rent­ly held by the UNC (Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress) and it looks like they may be look­ing to short-cir­cuit the screen­ing process for their in­cum­bent seats.

“Bear­ing in mind the UNC has failed to get off the block in se­lect­ing can­di­dates. If the PNM wants to take ad­van­tage of a sit­u­a­tion, it can have an elec­tion be­fore De­cem­ber and the PNM will catch the UNC with their pants down lit­er­al­ly and they will take back the gov­ern­ment,” Ra­goonath said.

Notwith­stand­ing the spec­u­la­tion, Row­ley has not of­fered any clar­i­ty on his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Prime Min­is­ter for more in­for­ma­tion on what he meant by his state­ments in the Low­er House but he did not re­spond up to late yes­ter­day evening.

Row­ley was first elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter in 2015 and again in 2020. He was ap­point­ed to the Par­lia­ment as a Sen­a­tor in 1987 and was sub­se­quent­ly elect­ed and re-elect­ed for nine con­sec­u­tive Par­lia­men­tary terms.

He is the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Diego Mar­tin West.


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