Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley yes­ter­day an­nounced his planned re­tire­ment from pol­i­tics in the is­land where he was born—To­ba­go.

Proud of his roots in Ma­son Hall where he was born on Oc­to­ber 24, 1949, many have heard the sto­ries of Dr Row­ley grow­ing up with his grand­par­ents, and his clan. At yes­ter­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence, Row­ley spoke of hav­ing lost two broth­ers in the last year, Fe­lix Joseph in May and Alpheus last week.

Dr Row­ley com­plet­ed his sec­ondary school­ing at Bish­op’s High School (BHS), To­ba­go, and his ster­ling aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance saw him cap­ture the pres­ti­gious Syl­van Bowles Schol­ar­ship at BHS.

He then com­menced his stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona, Ja­maica, from where he grad­u­at­ed with a BSc in Ge­ol­o­gy (First Class Ho­n­ours), and Ge­og­ra­phy (First Class Ho­n­ours); then a MSc in Vol­canic Stratig­ra­phy at UWI, St Au­gus­tine.

He is a vol­ca­nol­o­gist who ob­tained his Doc­tor­ate in Ge­ol­o­gy, spe­cial­is­ing in Geo­chem­istry. Dr Row­ley was Re­search Fel­low and Head of De­part­ment at the Seis­mic Re­search Unit at UWI, St Au­gus­tine.

Among his work re­gion­al­ly, he was part of a team which for many years pro­vid­ed in­di­vid­ual gov­ern­ments with sup­port through sci­en­tif­ic guid­ance and pop­u­la­tion pro­tec­tion and civ­il de­fence de­ci­sion-mak­ing dur­ing vol­canic emer­gen­cies through­out Caribbean is­lands and oth­er re­gions. He was al­so the gen­er­al man­ag­er at State-owned Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

Row­ley first ran for po­lit­i­cal of­fice in 1981, where he con­test­ed the To­ba­go West seat. He holds the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the on­ly Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date to have con­test­ed a seat in a Gen­er­al Elec­tion in both To­ba­go and Trinidad. He first served in the Par­lia­ment of T&T as an Op­po­si­tion PNM Sen­a­tor from 1987-1990. This was af­ter the PNM suf­fered a crush­ing 33-3 de­feat by the NAR and then PNM leader Patrick Man­ning had be­gun re­build­ing the par­ty, with Dr Row­ley among his front­line of­fi­cials.

His sig­na­ture dy­nam­ic fiery style of speak­ing would earn him the place of speak­ing just be­fore the leader on PNM po­lit­i­cal plat­forms. He was al­so PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader from 1987-2008.

He was elect­ed PNM’s Diego Mar­tin West MP in 1991 and was sub­se­quent­ly elect­ed and re-elect­ed for nine con­sec­u­tive Par­lia­men­tary terms since then.

In those pe­ri­ods of gov­ern­ment, Row­ley served as Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Ma­rine Re­sources; Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment; Min­is­ter of Hous­ing; and Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try.

As a Min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment, he served as a des­ig­nat­ed gov­er­nor of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) and the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB).

The pages of po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry about him will in­clude the fall­out with then-PNM leader Man­ning, who, in April 2009, fired Row­ley “for con­duct un­be­com­ing of a min­is­ter” and had deemed him a “rag­ing bull.” This, af­ter Row­ley had op­posed the mat­ter of the ho­tel at NA­PA and stood his ground on it, an is­sue which he de­tailed in full in his book “From Ma­son Hall to White­hall.”

Un­daunt­ed, Row­ley, mi­nus a port­fo­lio, oc­cu­pied the last row in the Par­lia­ment and served as a PNM MP un­til Man­ning called the gen­er­al elec­tion of 2010.

In the elec­tion cam­paign of May 2010—as the PNM faced a coali­tion of op­po­si­tion forces from the UNC, COP, MSJ and oth­er en­ti­ties which be­came the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship, Row­ley re­turned to the PNM’s elec­tion plat­form at a Diego Mar­tin meet­ing, say­ing there was a po­lit­i­cal ship called the “MV PNM and when the ship en­ters bat­tle it was not the time to throw the cap­tain over­board.”

The PNM, how­ev­er, lost to the PP, Man­ning stepped down and Row­ley sub­se­quent­ly as­sumed the lead­er­ship of the par­ty in 2010, con­tin­u­ing as po­lit­i­cal leader to date. He be­gan re­build­ing the par­ty in Op­po­si­tion, re­cruit­ing new faces among those serv­ing.

In the gen­er­al elec­tion of Sep­tem­ber 2015, Row­ley led the PNM to a 23-seat vic­to­ry against the PP and was elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter. In the Au­gust 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, he again led the par­ty to vic­to­ry—this time with 22 seats.

Row­ley’s ad­min­is­tra­tion has tak­en T&T through a num­ber of storms, in­clud­ing oil prices plum­met­ing to ze­ro in their first term and the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in the sec­ond term, all the while seek­ing to shore up en­er­gy rev­enue prices and lev­els and seek­ing new rev­enue sources. —Gail Alexan­der