Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

There were mixed re­ac­tions yes­ter­day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley named Stu­art Young act­ing Prime Min­is­ter yet again, as he left the coun­try to at­tend the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) 2024 in Samoa.

In a state­ment on Sun­day night, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter said Young will serve in the ab­sence of Row­ley, who is trav­el­ling to Apia, Samoa, to rep­re­sent T&T.

The move comes amid grow­ing spec­u­la­tion sur­round­ing Dr Row­ley’s tenure as leader of the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, fol­low­ing hints of his re­tire­ment dur­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Bud­get de­bate, and who may be tipped to be his suc­ces­sor.

Both Young, the En­er­gy Min­is­ter and a Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, and Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Fos­ter Cum­mings are said to be front run­ners for the lead­er­ship post, which will be con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due with­in the par­ty in 2026.

It al­so comes in the wake of Young fac­ing back­lash just last week for in­ap­pro­pri­ate com­ments to­wards Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in a “hot mic” sce­nario dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate.

Young was forced to apol­o­gise to the House for the sala­cious com­ments he made against Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter be­ing rep­ri­mand­ed by House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George and avoid­ed be­ing sent to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

Com­ment­ing on the de­ci­sion to go with Young so soon af­ter the pub­lic up­roar over what was de­scribed by the House Speak­er as dis­re­spect­ful be­hav­iour in the Par­lia­ment, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said while Young’s “hot mic” in­ci­dent may have hurt his chances at be­com­ing par­ty leader, Dr Row­ley’s de­ci­sion to have him act as Prime Min­is­ter could still be strate­gic.

“It could al­so be the Prime Min­is­ter is putting Stu­art Young for­ward as act­ing Prime Min­is­ter to get his sup­port­ers and the pop­u­la­tion com­fort­able for him as the leader, so it is a sort of ini­ti­a­tion with­out elec­tion. We know it does not work that way but these are all strate­gies that politi­cians can try,” she said.

Dr Ram­per­sad al­so of­fered an ex­pla­na­tion as to why Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who pre­vi­ous­ly reg­u­lar­ly act­ed as prime min­is­ter in Row­ley’s ab­sence, has been over­looked.

“Im­bert is one of the old­est serv­ing MPs in the par­lia­ment and so I re­al­ly do think that wind­ing down is in or­der. I thought he was be­ing giv­en a pe­ri­od to deal with the bud­get but we’ve seen that hap­pened in the post-Bud­get era that he is not be­ing called up­on.”

Im­bert has rep­re­sent­ed the con­stituen­cy of Diego Mar­tin North/East since 1991. The last time he act­ed in the role of PM was in May.

Young, mean­while, has now been cho­sen to act as PM on the last three oc­ca­sions Row­ley has left the coun­try. He al­so act­ed in Ju­ly and Sep­tem­ber.

Dr Ram­per­sad al­so sug­gest­ed that spec­u­la­tion sur­round­ing the fu­ture of the PNM lead­er­ship was premised on whether Row­ley’s re­tire­ment was im­mi­nent or not.

“What can hap­pen is that he may go for this gen­er­al elec­tion and when that lead­er­ship elec­tion comes around in 2026, he may de­cide he’s not go­ing to run for elec­tion and may or may not sup­port a can­di­date,” Ram­per­sad said.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj con­tend­ed that Young’s act­ing role as Prime Min­is­ter may be an in­flat­ed is­sue and not re­lat­ed to suc­ces­sion plan­ning as be­ing spec­u­lat­ed, not­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter is with­in his right to choose any­one to serve in his ab­sence.

“What we are see­ing in the po­lit­i­cal land­scape is a lot of po­lit­i­cal hedg­ing where peo­ple are play­ing a po­lit­i­cal game with the fu­ture mar­ket of pol­i­tics. It is the pre­rog­a­tive of any prime min­is­ter when he de­parts the coun­try or is un­able to car­ry the func­tion to ap­point who he sees is best suit­ed to act in the role. There is a lot of spec­u­la­tion by the me­dia and po­lit­i­cal stake­hold­ers to read more than what is seen.”

Ram­samooj not­ed that through­out the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry, for­mer prime min­is­ters have ap­point­ed dif­fer­ent cab­i­net min­is­ters at dif­fer­ent points in time to act.

“There is noth­ing un­due if a prime min­is­ter choos­es to se­lect a min­is­ter of his cab­i­net to act as a prime min­is­ter. What is un­for­tu­nate is the po­lit­i­cal bac­cha­nal that is spec­u­lat­ed by the me­dia and Op­po­si­tion that there is a di­vi­sion in pol­i­tics.”

For­mer PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford al­so yes­ter­day main­tained that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley was not act­ing against the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion by se­lect­ing Young out of the par­ty’s four deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers.

“I want to re­mind you that un­der Er­ic Williams, there were three deputy lead­ers and he ap­point­ed a sen­a­tor to act as Prime Min­is­ter. Un­der Patrick Man­ning, he had deputy lead­ers and he ap­point­ed Dr Lenny Saith, a sen­a­tor to act as Prime Min­is­ter.”

Ford main­tained that there was no con­tention over Dr Row­ley’s se­lec­tion of a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to act as prime min­is­ter.

Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal al­so weighed in on the is­sue of whether Row­ley was cor­rect in pick­ing Young to lead in his ab­sence.

In a short re­sponse, Mooni­lal said, “Yes; Mr Young is his ‘mi­ni-me’.”