For months, po­lit­i­cal cir­cles whis­pered that Stu­art Young was the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s favourite to re­place Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Those whis­pers were ver­i­fied yes­ter­day in To­ba­go, when Dr Row­ley an­nounced that Young would re­place him as PM when he re­tires be­fore this year’s gen­er­al elec­tions.

In un­der 11 years, Young has moved from an es­tab­lished at­tor­ney lack­ing po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence and worked his way up the po­lit­i­cal lad­der from a tem­po­rary op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor in 2014 to a min­is­ter in 2018 to an act­ing Prime Min­is­ter in Sep­tem­ber 2024. Four months lat­er, it has been con­firmed he will be­come T&T’s eighth Prime Min­is­ter.

Ahead of the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions, the PNM se­lect­ed Young to con­test the Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West seat. When PNM re­turned to Gov­ern­ment, he was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs, and Min­is­ter of State in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM).

Ahead of the 2015 Elec­tions and as part of the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Young and Al-Rawi cam­paigned on hold­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment to ac­count for al­leged cor­rup­tion. While for­mer AG Anand Ram­lo­gan and at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen were charged with col­lect­ing al­leged kick­backs, the case col­lapsed in 2022.

In Oc­to­ber 2016, Young was named min­is­ter in the OPM. Dur­ing that stint, he act­ed as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in the ab­sence of for­mer AG Faris Al-Rawi.

In June 2018, Young re­ceived his first full-fledged min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment as Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter. In Au­gust that year, he re­placed Ed­mund Dil­lon as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter.

In May 2019, the Op­po­si­tion called for Young’s fir­ing with 206 mur­ders re­port­ed in his first 147 days as min­is­ter.

In April 2021, Young be­came the new Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries.

In Oc­to­ber 2021, Young re­port­ed that the Gov­ern­ment had signed a Man­a­tee Project deal with Shell.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, Young joined the PM on a Eu­ro­pean trip to meet with ma­jor glob­al com­pa­nies to dis­cuss fu­ture in­vest­ments and rene­go­ti­ate con­tracts.

In No­vem­ber 2022, Young was elect­ed as the PNM chair­man.

In De­cem­ber 2023, Gov­ern­ment signed an agree­ment with Venezuela to joint­ly pro­duce and ex­port nat­ur­al gas from the Drag­on Gas field.

In June 2024, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo ap­point­ed him as a se­nior coun­sel.

On Ju­ly 28, Young was ap­point­ed as act­ing Prime Min­is­ter for the first time.

In Oc­to­ber, the Min­is­ter came un­der fire af­ter a ‘hot mic’ in­ci­dent in Par­lia­ment. Young was caught mak­ing deroga­to­ry com­ments about the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“All all yuh go. He would run girls now for all ah all yuh in the back room. Can’t use the PTSC bus­es any­more. They go bring the girls for all of al lyuh now, in­clud­ing Kam­la.

“... Yeah, she go­ing and za­m­my!” Young was heard say­ing in crosstalk with Gov­ern­ment col­leagues.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter es­caped be­ing re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee af­ter House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George in­struct­ed him to apol­o­gise to the Par­lia­ment for what she called the misog­y­nis­tic and ho­mo­pho­bic com­ments he made. He did.

De­spite the in­ci­dent, the PNM chair­man act­ed as PM for a third time that month, as Dr Row­ley at­tend­ed the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in Samoa.

Most re­cent­ly, on De­cem­ber 31, Young, act­ing as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, an­nounced the State of Emer­gency in re­sponse to crime. Dr Row­ley was in To­ba­go.