Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke is cau­tion­ing Prime Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young not to get ahead of him­self, re­mind­ing him that he has yet to be of­fi­cial­ly ap­point­ed.

Speak­ing in a so­cial me­dia video, Duke took is­sue with Young’s re­cent re­marks at an in­ter­na­tion­al women’s event last week, where he pledged to strength­en do­mes­tic vi­o­lence laws once he as­sumes of­fice. He sug­gest­ed that Young’s state­ment in­di­rect­ly un­der­mines the work of his pre­de­ces­sor, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who has served as Prime Min­is­ter for the past decade.

Duke warned Young to choose his words wise­ly, cau­tion­ing that pre­ma­ture promis­es and talk of new reg­u­la­tions could weak­en his lead­er­ship be­fore he even takes of­fice.

“Be very care­ful as to how you be­gin to tread on your Prime Min­is­ter's gar­ment. Re­mem­ber, you have not been giv­en the oil on your fore­head, as you are just not prime min­is­ter you're hop­ing to be. Do not try to show shade on the work of your Prime Min­is­ter. Con­grat­u­late him. Stay away from the laws that he would have su­per­vised. Stay away from the laws that he did not fix. Wait un­til you get the stamp of ap­proval, and then you could talk. But you're talk­ing out a time.”

He ad­vised Young to build on Row­ley’s lega­cy rather than cast doubt on ex­ist­ing poli­cies. He al­so urged him to fo­cus on more press­ing women’s is­sues, such as bet­ter wages and work­ing con­di­tions for do­mes­tic work­ers.