To­day marks the last day of Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s term in of­fice. To­day, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment will hold a Spe­cial Con­ven­tion and then present its can­di­dates for the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. At 10 am to­mor­row, Stu­art Young will be sworn in as prime min­is­ter.

The pre­sen­ta­tion of can­di­dates adds colour, dra­ma, and razzmatazz to the launch of an elec­tion cam­paign. Nor­mal­ly, the elec­tion date is an­nounced be­fore the can­di­dates are pre­sent­ed, but this lead­er­ship tran­si­tion is some­what un­usu­al, as Dr Row­ley will re­main as po­lit­i­cal leader for a while.

To­day’s pre­sen­ta­tion of can­di­dates is a farewell cer­e­mo­ny to demon­strate that Dr Row­ley has ful­filled his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as the par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal leader. The po­lit­i­cal mes­sage is that the par­ty ma­chin­ery is in­tact, un­di­vid­ed, and ready to de­fend the par­ty’s record in the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. The script has been writ­ten, and the wick­et pre­pared. The on­ly miss­ing in­gre­di­ent is the elec­tion date. All that is re­quired is to ex­e­cute the elec­tion cam­paign.

To be fair, by demit­ting of­fice be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion, Dr Row­ley has giv­en the PNM a good chance to re­tain its hold on po­lit­i­cal pow­er. His time in of­fice has been chal­leng­ing. He presided over a long de­pres­sion, which was com­pli­cat­ed by the ar­rival of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the ex­tra bur­den it placed on the coun­try’s weak fi­nances.

Many man­i­festo promis­es have gone un­ful­filled. In this re­gard, his ab­sence may be of greater val­ue than his pres­ence. By not con­test­ing the elec­tion, he has re­moved him­self from the fir­ing line and may have lim­it­ed the crit­i­cism that would have been di­rect­ed at the par­ty. In the process, he has giv­en Stu­art Young a fight­ing chance.

But the po­lit­i­cal in­her­i­tance comes with se­ri­ous dif­fi­cul­ties. Who­ev­er wins the next gen­er­al elec­tion must con­front many ex­is­ten­tial chal­lenges. Crime and the econ­o­my’s per­for­mance are ma­jor ob­sta­cles. De­spite protes­ta­tions to the con­trary, the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion has not made se­ri­ous progress on ei­ther front. The crime sit­u­a­tion has led us to the cur­rent State of Emer­gency, with the lead­er­ship of the TTPS in a weak po­si­tion. The jerky ap­proach to dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion has led to lit­tle head­way in im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness.

Nat­ur­al gas has been the key dri­ving force of the econ­o­my for a gen­er­a­tion. How­ev­er, pro­duc­tion is in sec­u­lar de­cline. Re­vers­ing this trend re­quires in­creased up­stream in­vest­ment to find new gas in mer­chantable quan­ti­ties to im­prove the ca­pac­i­ty util­i­sa­tion ra­tios of ex­ist­ing plants. Ac­cess­ing gas in Venezue­lan wa­ters is im­por­tant but sub­ject to the geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, which is com­pli­cat­ed and will not change in the short term.

The di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­fort has been in­con­sis­tent. Da­ta-dri­ven de­ci­sion-mak­ing is com­pro­mised be­cause the pri­ma­ry source of da­ta, the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, has not been prop­er­ly re­con­sti­tut­ed. In­equal­i­ty in so­ci­ety is in­creas­ing. Re­set­ting the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to meet the de­mands of a rapid­ly chang­ing world is be­hind­hand. The re­sult­ing fis­cal sit­u­a­tion is ev­i­denced by con­tin­u­ing fis­cal deficits, ris­ing na­tion­al debt, and for­eign ex­change scarci­ty. This is un­sus­tain­able. These chal­lenges must be ad­dressed in an in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment that is in­creas­ing­ly hos­tile to small coun­tries.

There­fore, the next ad­min­is­tra­tion must ex­er­cise fis­cal dis­ci­pline and en­gage civ­il so­ci­ety in new ap­proach­es. These chal­lenges are com­pli­cat­ed and re­quire a dif­fer­ent kind of think­ing from whichev­er par­ty wins the next elec­tion.