Con­sti­tu­tion­al at­tor­ney Mar­tin Daly, SC, has warned that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) risks em­bar­rass­ing Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo if it seeks her ap­proval to ap­point Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young as prime min­is­ter with­out the sup­port of all its MPs.

Daly ex­plained that such a sce­nario would arise on­ly if Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­signs, a pre­req­ui­site for ap­point­ing his suc­ces­sor. Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, he said:

“If he re­signs, then some­one will have to con­tact the Pres­i­dent or send a let­ter to the Pres­i­dent. If they do not rep­re­sent the ma­jor­i­ty of the PNM MPs—that is, the par­ty in pow­er—or have the sup­port of a ma­jor­i­ty of all the mem­bers in the House, it is go­ing to lead to a lot of con­fu­sion and in­sta­bil­i­ty. So, they may have to think again be­fore they em­bar­rass the Pres­i­dent.”

He re­ferred to PNM stal­wart Fer­di­nand Fer­reira’s ob­ser­va­tion that no Pres­i­dent has ever had to act in such a sce­nario.

Po­lit­i­cal Sci­en­tist Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany weighed in on the “co­nun­drum” cre­at­ed by the PNM par­lia­men­tary cau­cus’ 11-9 vote in favour of Young over Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son. He ex­plained that the par­ty could not pro­ceed with­out 21 MP sig­na­tures to present to Kan­ga­loo.

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 76(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, a Prime Min­is­ter can be ap­point­ed on­ly if they are the par­ty leader will­ing to serve or the MP com­mand­ing ma­jor­i­ty sup­port in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Ghany sug­gest­ed that Row­ley is lever­ag­ing the lat­ter con­di­tion.

“Dr Row­ley is us­ing that sec­ond part—of not be­ing will­ing to serve. That is what he is hang­ing his hat on: that he is not go­ing to be will­ing to serve as Prime Min­is­ter, al­though he is the par­ty’s leader. So, he stays as par­ty leader, and he is not will­ing to serve, but he will on­ly sig­ni­fy to the Pres­i­dent that un­will­ing­ness to serve at the point when he gets a doc­u­ment with 21 sig­na­tures,” Ghany said.

He stat­ed that the par­lia­men­tary cau­cus vote was in­tend­ed to gauge mem­bers’ pref­er­ences.

“The in­ter­nal elec­tion was re­quired, fol­lowed by the con­ven­tion. If that hap­pened, there would be no guar­an­tee that Young would be ap­point­ed if he went to the rank and file or a con­ven­tion. This way, Row­ley is try­ing to shep­herd it through by man­ag­ing it care­ful­ly, all the way to the Pres­i­dent’s door. When he presents the Pres­i­dent with his let­ter say­ing he is no longer will­ing to serve as Prime Min­is­ter, he will al­so present her with a doc­u­ment that has 21 sig­na­tures en­dors­ing Stu­art Young,” Ghany added.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath crit­i­cised Row­ley’s ap­proach, not­ing that the par­lia­men­tary cau­cus act­ed on its own with­out con­sid­er­ing the var­i­ous PNM arms.

“What hap­pens if the Gen­er­al Coun­cil and mem­ber­ship do not agree? MPs know that, while they are elect­ed of­fi­cials, they are of­fer­ing them­selves for re-elec­tion with­in a few months. They must re­turn to their peo­ple for sup­port. If their peo­ple be­lieve that what they have done un­der­mines the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the PNM as a po­lit­i­cal par­ty, can they now go and tell the peo­ple, ‘We will be your rep­re­sen­ta­tives,’ when they need­ed to con­sult with them for things like a leader and so on, and they nev­er both­ered to do that?” Ra­goonath asked.

Ra­goonath said Row­ley’s ap­proach has cre­at­ed prob­lems with­in the par­ty but pre­dict­ed that once the PNM re­solves its in­ter­nal mat­ters, it will re­turn to elec­tion mode.