In T&T’s po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry, there has nev­er been a prime min­is­ter who vol­un­tar­i­ly re­signed from that high of­fice.

Dr Er­ic Williams died in of­fice. All the oth­ers — George Cham­bers, ANR Robin­son, Bas­deo Pan­day and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar — left of­fice by the route of elec­toral de­feat.

To­mor­row, Dr Kei­th Row­ley will set a new prece­dent in T&T’s po­lit­i­cal cul­ture by re­tir­ing be­fore his cur­rent five-year term ex­pires. In the com­ing months, he will al­so be re­placed as Diego Mar­tin West MP and po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), step­ping away com­plete­ly af­ter more than four decades in pub­lic life.

His fi­nal ma­jor func­tion as prime min­is­ter will be pre­sid­ing at a PNM ral­ly to­mor­row where the par­ty’s 41 prospec­tive gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates will be of­fi­cial­ly in­tro­duced. To­day, he com­mis­sions the new ANR Robin­son Air­port Ter­mi­nal in To­ba­go.

In his fi­nal ma­jor in­ter­view be­fore demit­ting of­fice, which was broad­cast on Thurs­day night, Dr Row­ley, when asked to re­flect on his lega­cy, fo­cused in­stead on ser­vice to the coun­try, which he said was his main mo­ti­va­tion for en­ter­ing pol­i­tics. He ex­pressed the view that he “must have done some­thing good,” quot­ing from his favourite line in the pop­u­lar mu­si­cal, Sound of Mu­sic.

With his re­tire­ment from po­lit­i­cal of­fice, the elec­torate will not have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to di­rect­ly weigh in on his po­lit­i­cal per­for­mance over the past five years. How­ev­er, he will not be able to avoid the ver­dict of the court of pub­lic opin­ion on his tenure.

For the bet­ter part of five months, ever since he dropped a hint about his im­mi­nent de­par­ture at the end of his con­tri­bu­tion to last Oc­to­ber's Bud­get de­bate, there has been much scruti­ny and dis­cus­sion over his ten years in the Of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter.

He said then that his main con­cern was that “hav­ing done the best for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he would be able to leave with his “head held high."

What­ev­er the views, pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive, about Dr Row­ley’s two con­sec­u­tive terms as prime min­is­ter, his place in his­to­ry is guar­an­teed.

As T&T’s sev­enth prime min­is­ter and the sec­ond from To­ba­go, as well as the fourth po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM and one of the coun­try’s longest-serv­ing par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, he has sel­dom been out of the po­lit­i­cal spot­light since his de­but in 1981.

He has left a def­i­nite mark.

At the lev­el of the par­ty, un­der his lead­er­ship the bal­isi­er tie was dis­pensed with as com­pul­so­ry wear for their par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, one-man-one-vote was in­tro­duced for in­ter­nal elec­tions and Bal­isi­er House un­der­went an ex­ten­sive up­grade.

Defin­ing as­pects of his lead­er­ship at the na­tion­al lev­el came dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic but were over­shad­owed by his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s han­dling of crime and the econ­o­my.

Re­gion­al­ly, Dr Row­ley’s chair­man­ship of Cari­com dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, man­age­ment of the in­flux of Venezue­lan mi­grants and re­la­tions with the Nico­las Maduro regime drew mixed re­views.

His frosty re­la­tion­ship with the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion in the Unit­ed States has al­ready drawn crit­i­cisms from his po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

In terms of po­lit­i­cal re­la­tion­ships, his of­ten-con­tentious ex­changes with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine will stand as part of his track record in of­fice.

But for this To­ba­go-born and raised politi­cian, his­to­ry may be less-than-flat­ter­ing when it comes to the mat­ter of au­ton­o­my for the sis­ter is­land. Fail­ure to de­liv­er on this and oth­er ma­jor cam­paign promis­es will over­shad­ow his po­lit­i­cal lega­cy.