Since the for­ma­tion of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) 68 years ago, its three for­mer po­lit­i­cal lead­ers have nev­er iden­ti­fied a suc­ces­sor or pre­sent­ed a suc­ces­sion plan.

But as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley drops more hints that he’s ready to re­tire from elec­toral pol­i­tics, sev­er­al names are be­ing tossed in the ring to re­place him. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands it’s re­al­ly a fight be­tween En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Fos­ter Cum­mings.

This week, Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk takes a look at the par­ty’s po­ten­tial lead­ers, what’s at stake for the PNM, and whether con­stituents think their MP could rep­re­sent the coun­try as the next po­lit­i­cal leader and Prime Min­is­ter. 

The fron­trun­ner for the post of po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM is the mul­ti-hy­phen­ate politi­cian, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, of­ten dubbed the Min­is­ter of Every­thing.

Dr Row­ley de­scribed Young as his “Gary Sobers”, the leg­endary West In­di­an crick­et all-rounder- and apart from his ma­jor port­fo­lios over the years and his act­ing ones, he’s been a Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.  In De­cem­ber 2022, Young was al­so elect­ed chair­man of the PNM. 

But par­ty sources, say Young’s com­pe­ti­tion is Fos­ter Cum­mings, the Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice and the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the PNM. Cum­mings was on­ly giv­en a full port­fo­lio in Row­ley’s sec­ond term in of­fice but ac­tive­ly built his pro­file among the youth pop­u­la­tion in the par­ty and on so­cial me­dia. He is wide­ly pop­u­lar with the par­ty’s base hav­ing been a mem­ber of the PNM for 35 years, com­pared to Young’s 10 and a half years. 

How­ev­er, Young holds the dis­tinc­tion that be­sides Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, he has act­ed as Prime Min­is­ter on the last two oc­ca­sions Row­ley has been away. 

Both Young and Cum­mings’ ap­proach­es to of­fice and gov­er­nance have been wide­ly dif­fer­ent. While Young is seen as com­bat­ive in his de­fence of the Gov­ern­ment, the PNM and Row­ley- (a trait which has led com­men­ta­tors to com­pare him to Row­ley), Cum­mings’ ap­proach has been more mea­sured. He has nev­er court­ed con­tro­ver­sy or com­ment­ed on con­tro­ver­sial mat­ters even when he was the sub­ject of them.

In the past two years, while Young has been ne­go­ti­at­ing en­er­gy con­tracts glob­al­ly to earn and main­tain a rev­enue stream to fund the coun­try’s ex­pens­es, Cum­mings has been work­ing with the young peo­ple of the coun­try to skill them up and give them op­por­tu­ni­ties for self-im­prove­ment and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

Both have na­tion­al au­di­ences but speak to them dif­fer­ent­ly- while Young has grabbed news­pa­per head­lines for pos­i­tives and neg­a­tives, Cum­mings has en­gaged so­cial me­dia by do­ing his work­out ses­sions or oth­er so­cial trends. 

Both Young and Cum­mings have weath­ered their fair share of con­tro­ver­sy.

In Young’s case, there have been sev­er­al calls for him to re­sign. In May 2019, the Op­po­si­tion called for Young’s fir­ing af­ter there were 206 mur­ders dur­ing his first 147 days as min­is­ter, he was crit­i­cised by cit­i­zens for the bor­der clo­sure dur­ing Covid-19. In May 2020, Young faced res­ig­na­tion calls from the Op­po­si­tion over his han­dling of the March vis­it of Venezuela’s Ex­ec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez and last week, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts again called for his head over crass re­marks lev­elled at Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the House. 

Last Fri­day, Young apol­o­gised to the pub­lic as well as the House and was not sent to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

“It is un­de­ni­able that some of the tasks were dif­fi­cult ones that would have at­tract­ed crit­i­cism, both war­rant­ed and un­war­rant­ed, I am al­ways will­ing to lis­ten and to im­prove. I am cer­tain that every­thing I have done was done with the high­est lev­el of in­tegri­ty and with an ac­knowl­edge­ment of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that I have to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he had told Guardian Me­dia in an in­ter­view pub­lished on Sep­tem­ber 15. 

In Cum­mings’ case, his min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment was hit with a scan­dal that he was pre­vent­ed from do­ing his Mas­ters at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies be­cause of pla­gia­rism. In a state­ment, he said a mis­take was made and a les­son was learnt. 

“The cy­cle of re­silience—mis­take made, lessons learnt, fu­ture suc­cess ac­com­plished—is the prin­ci­ple I hold out to every young per­son as an in­valu­able life as­set, crit­i­cal for per­son­al de­vel­op­ment and ad­vance­ment. Don’t let your mis­takes win; learn your lessons and move on up with hu­mil­i­ty and per­sis­tence,” he said at the time. 

While in of­fice, he has been un­der po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and Guardian Me­dia could not get an up­date up to late yes­ter­day evening on the sta­tus of the mat­ter.

In May 2022, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, re­vealed the con­tents of the re­port, which then act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob lat­er said was an au­then­tic re­port-it claimed that Cum­mings’ con­tracts with the HDC were used to “con­duct­ed un­scrupu­lous busi­ness”.  In May 2023, in a let­ter to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher dat­ed May 3, Cum­mings’ at­tor­neys-led by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, asked that the TTPS pub­licly clear Cum­mings’ name and ac­knowl­edged that Spe­cial Branch (SB) re­port was au­then­tic and ad­dressed each is­sue raised there­in. 

In Oc­to­ber 2021, po­lice ap­plied for pro­duc­tion or­ders for in­for­ma­tion from sev­er­al fi­nan­cial en­ti­ties as they probed pay­ments to com­pa­nies for­mer­ly linked to the min­is­ter. Cum­mings’s at­tor­neys ob­ject­ed to the po­lice’s ap­pli­ca­tion and sus­pend­ed the pro­duc­tion or­ders.

In an in­ter­view in May 2022, Ja­cob said the FIB was con­tin­u­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tions.   At a me­dia brief­ing a month lat­er act­ing Snr Supt as­signed to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau (ACIB) Deryck Walk­er said in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Cum­mings can take “from a day to ten years” de­pend­ing on what was un­earthed.  

In Ju­ly 2021, at­tor­neys Asha Watkins-Montserin and Keisha Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal, who have been rep­re­sent­ing Cum­mings, in a me­dia re­lease de­nied their client was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. At the time they were re­spond­ing to ru­mours that the home of a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter was searched by po­lice. 

Days af­ter Lutch­me­di­al spoke about the doc­u­ment, Cum­mings and his fam­i­ly re­ceived coun­selling, ac­cord­ing to his at­tor­neys in their pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter. Cum­mings al­so claimed he pro­vid­ed all of the “ev­i­den­tiary facts” to Row­ley af­ter the claims were made. 

Asked about it at a me­dia con­fer­ence a week lat­er, Row­ley said Spe­cial Branch re­ports should be tak­en with a bit of salt. He said while he was not de­fend­ing the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, he was pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion that con­tra­dict­ed the claims in the re­port, and it was up to the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate the claims and pro­duce the ev­i­dence to sup­port it. 

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on June 28 at Bal­isi­er House, Cum­mings was asked about the al­le­ga­tions and his con­tro­ver­sial de­ci­sion to sue the state over the leaked Spe­cial Branch Re­port. He said his rights were “in­fringed”.

Asked about be­ing a po­lit­i­cal leader?

“What I can tell you if there is no va­can­cy. We will see,” he said.

PNM’s his­to­ry with

suc­ces­sion plan­ning

Par­ty sources said that Row­ley’s in­de­ci­sion has led to spec­u­la­tion which is caus­ing un­easi­ness in the par­ty as both Young and Cum­mings have fac­tions of sup­port. 

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne, told Guardian Me­dia that he be­lieved the re­cent pub­lic com­ments of the Prime Min­is­ter were not in­tend­ed to trig­ger any as­sump­tions or any type of pow­er strug­gle. 

“Giv­en my tenure and ex­pe­ri­ence in na­tion­al pol­i­tics and in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, I have come to recog­nise the dan­gers of vault­ing am­bi­tion and the hubris that ac­com­pa­nies it. Such hubris can af­fect oth­ers neg­a­tive­ly and lead to un­forced er­rors and to the for­ma­tion of camps and di­vi­sion in cir­cum­stances where the na­tion needs heal­ing and not more tox­i­c­i­ty and strife.

“The PNM has a con­sti­tu­tion, pro­to­cols, and pro­ce­dures that have giv­en the par­ty great sta­bil­i­ty over many years. And in the end, God’s will shall al­ways su­percede the best of plans and agen­das,” he said. 

One of the par­ty’s found­ing mem­bers Fer­di­nand Fer­reira shared the his­to­ry be­hind the PNM’s three po­lit­i­cal lead­ers-the late Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers and Patrick Man­ning-who nev­er saw it fit to iden­ti­fy a suc­ces­sor.

The au­thor of two books, Fer­reira, 92, said Row­ley is the on­ly PNM leader to sig­nal Young as his pos­si­ble re­place­ment, stat­ing this was an ex­tra­or­di­nary move.

“That is un­prece­dent­ed in the his­to­ry of the PNM. None of our lead­ers have ever clear­ly iden­ti­fied with any suc­ces­sor. Now sig­nals are emerg­ing of the po­lit­i­cal leader who hap­pens to be the Prime Min­is­ter…he has iden­ti­fied some­body who he thinks should suc­ceed him,” Fer­reira, told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing an in­ter­view last Wednes­day.

The bot­tom line is, Fer­reira said, Row­ley has sent a clear sig­nal of choice in his affin­i­ty and praise of Young. 

At the PNM’s par­ty con­fer­ences held in Ju­ly and Au­gust, the PM ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the crop of young peo­ple he brought in­to the elec­toral fold for the par­ty.

Fer­reira said the PNM “has had a check­ered his­to­ry, in terms of suc­ces­sion of lead­er­ship” with Williams, Cham­bers and Man­ning fail­ing to iden­ti­fy a suc­ces­sor.

“Leave it to Dr Williams alone he would have cer­tain­ly not se­lect­ed Cham­bers… leave it to Cham­bers he would not have se­lect­ed Man­ning… leave it to Man­ning he would not have se­lect­ed Row­ley.”

Un­der Williams’ lead­er­ship, he hand-picked three deputies, Ka­malud­din Mo­hammed, Er­rol Ma­habir and Cham­bers.

“But he nev­er in­di­cat­ed whom he favoured to take over the par­ty,” Fer­reira re­called.

Fer­reira said the pop­u­la­tion has to re­mem­ber that Row­ley is still the par­ty’s leader and may car­ry the PNM in­to the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

“What he is up to we are not too sure. He has not said he is leav­ing. So who is sup­port­ing who at the mo­ment is pure spec­u­la­tion? We don’t know if he (Row­ley) is go­ing…be­cause Stu­art Young came out open­ly and said Dr Row­ley will lead us in the next elec­tion.”

Cum­mings, the par­ty’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary and Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice said the same thing.

The big­ger ques­tion one has to ask, Fer­reira said, is if Row­ley will ac­cept the nom­i­na­tion for the lead­er­ship post.

For­mer Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Singh said the PNM was grop­ing in the dark with its lead­er­ship chal­lenges.

A for­mer long­time mem­ber of the PNM, Lee Sing said the par­ty must be cau­tious in putting some­one to lead who has ques­tions to an­swer. 

He said the PNM does not have much stock to choose from with­in the par­ty.

“The cal­i­bre of Row­ley’s Cab­i­net is less than mediocre.”

Lee Sing said the par­ty may have to look be­yond the cur­rent batch of MPs for a suc­ces­sor.

His per­son­al choice to lead the PNM was for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte, while Row­ley con­tin­ued to be PM to man­age the coun­try’s af­fairs.

Oth­er con­tenders in the race

Ter­rence Beepath, the par­ty’s field of­fi­cer said any­one in­ter­est­ed in run­ning for the par­ty’s lead­er­ship can do so as their con­sti­tu­tion is clear: “As it is right now there is no (fight for the) lead­er­ship be­cause Dr Row­ley is there un­til 2026…con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly.”

Beepath said Row­ley’s swan song was a prob­a­ble in­di­ca­tion that he may not con­test the 2026 lead­er­ship post.

Beepath said the PM has in­di­cat­ed that he wants to spend more time with his fam­i­ly see­ing that his wife Sharon has re­tired.

“But cer­tain­ly he is go­ing to be there to see us through the next elec­tion in 2025. Af­ter which he would prob­a­bly look at re­tire­ment be­cause he has been hint­ing that in the pub­lic do­main.”

While there is spec­u­la­tion that Young is be­ing groomed to take over the PNM and Cum­mings is be­ing sup­port­ed by the Black Cau­cus, Beepath said we should not cast aside Beck­les since she chal­lenged Row­ley in 2018 for the lead­er­ship post.

“I am not sure she is dead as yet…I am sure she may very well put her hat in the ring. We al­so have Faris Al-Rawi who is al­so a per­son who might show in­ter­est. I am sure it would not be one per­son... it would be sev­er­al.”

Beepath said it was no se­cret that Young was a “con­fi­dante” of the Prime Min­is­ter.

While Young may be viewed as a new­com­er to the po­lit­i­cal are­na, Beepath said, he has his strengths.

“George Cham­bers was one no­body pre­dict­ed…even Mr Man­ning. No­body pre­dict­ed he would have been the leader, you see.”

Ques­tioned if there was a rift in the par­ty re­gard­ing talk of a suc­ces­sor, Beepath said there was no such thing.

Beepath al­so dis­missed ru­mours that Row­ley’s health has been sink­ing.

“He does not seem sick. He is very strong. He’s stronger than me.”

An­tho­ny Roberts who served as the 2022 chair­man of the PNM’s Elec­tion Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee said it was too ear­ly to tell who would vie for the lead­er­ship post.

“But when that time comes the par­ty will choose. Dr Row­ley said he would move on at some time, as every­body else in po­si­tion would. I was the longest-serv­ing chair­man of any cor­po­ra­tion in the coun­try. Now I am not be­cause you have to move on at some time.”

PNM mem­ber and for­mer Ari­ma may­or and MP Ash­ton Ford said the choice of a po­lit­i­cal leader was months away.

“I don’t see it as an im­me­di­ate is­sue.”

Ford opt­ed not to say who has the po­ten­tial to suc­ceed Row­ley.

Asked if there have been squab­bles in the PNM, Ford said the par­ty con­tin­ues to stand strong and unit­ed.

“There would al­ways be dis­agree­ments but there is no rift.”

For­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter and Ari­ma MP An­tho­ny Gar­cia, an ad­vis­er in Cum­mings’ min­istry said he nev­er thought of Cum­mings vy­ing for the post of po­lit­i­cal leader nor dis­cussed the mat­ter with him.

“I pre­fer not to com­ment at this stage.”

The Sun­day Guardian What­sApped ques­tions to Cum­mings, the par­ty’s PRO Faris Al-Rawi, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (la­dy vice chair­man) and vice-chair­man Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly but re­ceived no re­sponse.