For­mer gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Ralph Maraj is giv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley one month to come clean on the fu­ture lead­er­ship of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). He wants the PM to tell the pub­lic why the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion sched­uled for next month was sud­den­ly can­celled and be hon­est when it comes to whether or not he is re­tir­ing from pol­i­tics.

Talk about Row­ley’s de­par­ture from the PNM be­gan last Thurs­day, af­ter the PM hint­ed at step­ping down on the fi­nal day of Bud­get de­bate con­tri­bu­tions in Par­lia­ment. Row­ley said he did not know how much longer he had in Par­lia­ment, he had run his course and was look­ing for­ward to his fam­i­ly at the end of the metaphor­ic “rain­bow.”

Al­though it was not the first time the PM had spo­ken of his po­lit­i­cal de­par­ture, more eye­brows were raised when the PNM an­nounced the can­cel­la­tion of its 51st an­nu­al con­ven­tion and in­ter­nal elec­tion less than 24 hours lat­er.

PNM mem­bers are tight-lipped about the rea­son why. This led to more ques­tions about whether Row­ley was bow­ing out and if so, who will be his suc­ces­sor.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Maraj said Row­ley’s tone of fi­nal­i­ty has led to fur­ther spec­u­la­tion and called on the PM to clear the air.

He said the par­ty’s lead­er­ship elec­tions should be a pri­or­i­ty and the mem­ber­ship should de­cide who they want as their head.

Say­ing Row­ley should not de­cide who will lead the par­ty, Maraj said, “I would think that they should try to do this over the next month or so. Clear up the sit­u­a­tion. Make a state­ment to the coun­try about what the sit­u­a­tion is at present. Right now, the Prime Min­is­ter is not say­ing any­thing about the post­pone­ment, that is lead­ing to fur­ther spec­u­la­tion.

“They should make a de­ci­sion about the way for­ward, how they are go­ing to man­age this tran­si­tion, be­cause they are clear­ly in a tran­si­tion mode as far as the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is con­cerned. How they are go­ing to man­age it in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, trans­par­ent way so that the peo­ple, the mem­bers of the par­ty, can have their say rather than hav­ing a sit­u­a­tion ma­nip­u­lat­ed for the in­ser­tion of a new leader, the in­ser­tion of a new lead­er­ship. That is go­ing to weak­en the par­ty.”

He added, “If it is in­deed as it is ru­moured that Dr Row­ley has a par­tic­u­lar choice in mind to re­place him to be his suc­ces­sor, then that rais­es ques­tions. Is he go­ing to con­tin­ue to head the com­mit­tee of the par­ty to choose the can­di­date? Would he then, in that process, not im­pose his own can­di­date on the new leader in case it is not his cho­sen one? Let the peo­ple de­cide. Let the PNM mem­ber­ship de­cide who they want as their new leader. It shouldn’t be that Dr Row­ley would choose his can­di­date and try to im­pose that per­son by what­ev­er means that is nec­es­sary, that is not a fair thing to do.”

Among names be­ing tout­ed as pos­si­ble par­ty lead­ers are En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne and Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings.

Maraj was a PNM MP from Jan­u­ary 1992 to Sep­tem­ber 1995, be­fore cross­ing the floor to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. He was a min­is­ter of for­eign af­fairs un­der the PNM and a min­is­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy un­der the UNC from No­vem­ber 1995 to Oc­to­ber 2001.

Al­so con­tact­ed, NTA leader Gary Grif­fith said, “The PNM, they have a de­gree of dis­ci­pline where that dirty linen stays in­side. This might very well be the rea­son why they are try­ing to re­frain from hav­ing this type of in­ter­nal elec­tion at this time, pri­or to a gen­er­al elec­tion.

“That seems to be the rea­son where they’re de­cid­ing to cir­cle the wag­on, work as one so­lid­i­fied group, to en­sure that they can go as one body in the gen­er­al elec­tion. ... They would have seen what hap­pened with an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty, where un­for­tu­nate­ly that con­cept of democ­ra­cy is not alive and kick­ing. It’s as if you have a right to chal­lenge but if you chal­lenge you will be deemed as a dis­si­dent.”