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Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Rowley gives Young 3rd stint as acting PM

... Decision seen as strategic, par for the course by analysts

by

Jesse Ramdeo
112 days ago
20241022
Acting Prime Minister Stuart Young, left, speaks to constituents during a visit to Hololo, St Ann’s, on Sunday.

Acting Prime Minister Stuart Young, left, speaks to constituents during a visit to Hololo, St Ann’s, on Sunday.

COURTESY: STUART YOUNG/FACEBOOK

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’.”


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