Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s de­ci­sion to an­nounce his re­tire­ment now “is a clear ad­mis­sion of his fail­ure to lead T&T ef­fec­tive­ly,” but Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith, who thanked Row­ley for his ser­vice to coun­try, says Row­ley’s move is a po­lit­i­cal­ly ma­ture one.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Grif­fith and oth­er politi­cians voiced their views af­ter Row­ley’s re­tire­ment an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said “... (Row­ley’s) lega­cy is one of fail­ure, di­vi­sion, and de­spair, leav­ing a na­tion in dark­ness. He should do the ho­n­ourable thing and call the elec­tions ...”

She added, “Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley has an­nounced his in­ten­tion to re­tire again. While I ac­knowl­edge that many will cel­e­brate the con­clu­sion of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, I must al­so ad­dress the con­cerns about his pen­chant for po­lit­i­cal ma­noeu­vring.

“He and his PNM MPs, most of whom he has foist­ed on the pop­u­la­tion as can­di­dates for the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, have bru­talised busi­ness­es and im­pov­er­ished cit­i­zens, al­lowed a vi­o­lent crime cri­sis and de­stroyed every in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tion in T&T. Row­ley and his Min­is­ters have tak­en us to a failed state with a lame-duck Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment. The Gov­ern­ment is in chaos.”

She added, “Why make this an­nounce­ment af­ter call­ing a State of Emer­gency four days ago? It is clear that this SoE was a po­lit­i­cal gim­mick that has al­ready failed spec­tac­u­lar­ly.”

She claimed Row­ley was “... en­gag­ing in a per­verse, wicked soap opera with­in the PNM while T&T’s de­stroyed.”

“He’s crashed the coun­try and aban­doned the ship af­ter rais­ing his salary and pen­sion,” she said.

“State se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers will not heed in­struc­tions from a lame-duck prime min­is­ter, lo­cal and for­eign fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and en­er­gy com­pa­nies will hold on to most in­vest­ments, cred­it ac­cess will be put on hold, and T&T will move in­to fi­nan­cial sta­sis un­til the next elec­tion. I’m in­formed PNM MPs and fi­nanciers are dump­ing their TT dol­lar hold­ings as T&T is on the IMF door, and fi­nanc­ing from oth­er agen­cies has dried up,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged.

“Does Row­ley in­tend to use his re­treat as a plat­form to pres­sure and bul­ly his par­ty’s par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in­to en­dors­ing Stu­art Young as his suc­ces­sor? Will tax­pay­ers be forced to fund what ap­pears to be a PNM in­ter­nal pow­er strug­gle dis­guised as gov­er­nance?”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed his “dis­re­gard for de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples with­in his par­ty, ex­em­pli­fied by the post­pone­ment of the PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tions and spe­cial con­ven­tion, speaks vol­umes about his lead­er­ship.”

She ac­cused Row­ley’s ad­min­is­tra­tion of in­ter­fer­ing with in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions from the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, and Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Gary thanks PM for ser­vice to T&T, oth­er re­ac­tions

NTA leader Grif­fith, mean­while, has thanked Row­ley for his 45 years of ser­vice to T&T.

“I wish the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter the best in his fu­ture en­deav­ours and I wish to thank him for his ser­vice to the coun­try. There will be many peo­ple who will be pleased for what he has done. There will be peo­ple who will be dis­ap­point­ed, up­set or even hate him. That’s what it is to be in pub­lic life. Not every­body could like you, not every­body could hate you.

“I think that what he’s done, how­ev­er, shows po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty. He has un­der­stood when it’s time to move on, un­like oth­ers who may want to stay for­ev­er as they con­trol a cer­tain group—but it could cost their po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

He added, “Some peo­ple leave at the top, oth­ers know when it’s time to leave and if it is that what we’re look­ing at right now, it ob­vi­ous­ly will make a ma­jor spin in T&T’s pol­i­tics as it may be the first time, if I could re­call, that some­one who’s serv­ing as a Prime Min­is­ter is de­cid­ing to demit of­fice whilst still serv­ing. On most oc­ca­sions, prime min­is­ters have been re­moved from of­fice or died whilst in of­fice.”

Ad­mit­ting that he and Row­ley shared a mixed re­la­tion­ship, he said, “The two of us are two very head­strong in­di­vid­u­als but I wish him the best. This has been a dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od for him as he’s lost two broth­ers this year alone. What I re­call, is him be­ing ho­n­ourable and ma­ture enough that even when we had our po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences, he con­tact­ed me and sent his prayers and well wish­es to my wife when she was di­ag­nosed with can­cer—in to­tal con­trast to an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal leader in whose gov­ern­ment my wife was a sen­a­tor and up to now that in­di­vid­ual has nev­er con­tact­ed my wife.”

He added, “This is re­al­ly a tale of two sea­soned, ex­pe­ri­enced po­lit­i­cal lead­ers—one who’s won for the last ten years but de­cides to step aside, an­oth­er who has lost for the last ten years and de­cides to re­main. One de­cid­ed to do the ho­n­ourable thing and move on, the oth­er de­cides she’d like to re­main po­lit­i­cal leader for­ev­er. That’s their choice, we’ll see what is the out­come based on these de­ci­sions.”

For­mer min­is­ter in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, Dr Bhoe Tewarie, said it was clear it was be­ing con­sid­ered for a while.

“It’s im­por­tant for a leader to know when it is time and he has been think­ing for some time now that it might be time and he’s brought the mat­ter to res­o­lu­tion. The chal­lenge is now for his par­ty, in the mul­ti­ple quests for lead­er­ship, for the Op­po­si­tion, who must ad­dress a dif­fer­ent sce­nario and for T&T, which has to de­ter­mine what kind of coun­try it wants and who would best be able to cre­ate the kind of fu­ture that peo­ple en­vis­age.”

UNC dis­si­dent MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said, “Dr Row­ley hasn’t been a good prime min­is­ter, but he has ex­hib­it­ed the traits of a good politi­cian. His an­nounce­ment of his de­par­ture from pol­i­tics served to dis­tract at­ten­tion from the SoE about which he gave al­most no in­for­ma­tion we didn’t have. On his ex­pec­ta­tions about the re­sults (sig­nif­i­cant sup­pres­sion of gun vi­o­lence), this says noth­ing, since there’s no in­di­ca­tion how this is go­ing to be achieved. Nei­ther did he give a time­line. His re­sponse on cit­i­zens’ re­course if men in po­lice uni­form who might not be le­git­i­mate po­lice­men show up, and the con­cerns of cor­rupt po­lice­men who abuse their pow­ers, was al­so noth­ing more than plat­i­tudes, es­sen­tial­ly ask­ing the po­lice­men to be good. None of this was ac­cept­able or help­ful.”

HOPE chair­man Steve Al­varez said, “Dr Row­ley has made a sen­si­ble po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sion. T&T’s bet­ter served with new blood and young peo­ple. He’s ap­par­ent­ly mak­ing room for the ap­pro­pri­ate peo­ple to fill the po­lit­i­cal void. I re­al­ly wish the Op­po­si­tion Leader would fol­low suit so we can have fresh po­lit­i­cal blood in T&T.”

COP’s Wen­dell Ever­s­ley said, “Dr Row­ley made a smart move. He must now have the UNC won­der­ing be­cause while they were think­ing the PNM was one man, they’re now to find out the PNM is an in­sti­tu­tion. But Kam­la isn’t the so­lu­tion.”