The peace­ful trans­fer of po­lit­i­cal pow­er is a key ob­jec­tive of all po­lit­i­cal sys­tems. Fail­ure to do so of­ten re­sults in a loss of pub­lic trust, in­se­cu­ri­ty and dis­tur­bance in the body politic, which af­fects sta­bil­i­ty and co­he­sion.

Even in strong democ­ra­cies, the trans­fer of pow­er can be prob­lem­at­ic. Jan­u­ary 6, 2020, in the Unit­ed States, was a day of shame when a mob of ri­ot­ers bat­tled the po­lice and il­le­gal­ly en­tered the US Capi­tol build­ing to thwart the peace­ful tran­si­tion of pow­er. Three con­trast­ing po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion process­es oc­curred last week Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 6, with dif­fer­ent lev­els of or­gan­i­sa­tion­al pre­ci­sion. First was the con­sti­tu­tion­al process in the US Sen­ate to con­firm Don­ald Trump’s elec­toral vic­to­ry with the de­feat­ed can­di­date, Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris, pre­sid­ing. Sec­ond, Cana­da’s Justin Trudeau an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion as Prime Min­is­ter and as po­lit­i­cal leader of the Lib­er­al Par­ty. He im­me­di­ate­ly pro­rogued Par­lia­ment un­til March 24, there­by giv­ing the Lib­er­al Par­ty time to choose its suc­ces­sor be­fore Par­lia­ment re­opens.

In T&T, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley man­aged the process of anoint­ing his cho­sen suc­ces­sor with­out giv­ing the date on which he would demit the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter or the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) par­ty. His de­ci­sion to re­sign in an elec­tion year is in­con­ve­nient.

The par­ty is in the mid­dle of se­lect­ing can­di­dates to con­test this year’s gen­er­al elec­tion. The “rea­son” for Dr Row­ley’s de­par­ture is that he needs to spend more time with his fam­i­ly. One would pre­sume that his de­sire to spend time with his fam­i­ly must have been ur­gent. Yet, his re­luc­tance to de­clare a firm date for his res­ig­na­tion as Prime Min­is­ter or as po­lit­i­cal leader be­lies this ur­gency.

Dr Row­ley said he would re­sign as Prime Min­is­ter some­time in March, but not as a po­lit­i­cal leader. Un­der S76 (1) (a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Pres­i­dent ap­points the leader of the par­ty who com­mands the ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Since Dr Row­ley is re­sign­ing on­ly as PM and not as PNM par­ty leader, S76 (1) (b) will ap­ply. This al­lows the Pres­i­dent to ap­point the per­son who is like­ly to com­mand the ma­jor­i­ty in the House.

Us­ing the par­lia­men­tary cau­cus to choose a suc­ces­sor “des­ig­nate” was a prac­ti­cal method to sat­is­fy the math­e­mat­ics of Sec­tion 76 (b), even though there was no va­can­cy. How­ev­er, the vot­ing re­sults leaked to the me­dia show the thin­ness of the sup­port for Stu­art Young.

How does Dr Row­ley en­sure that his ap­pointee re­mains undis­put­ed? When first ap­point­ed po­lit­i­cal leader, Dr Row­ley cham­pi­oned the re­place­ment of the del­e­gate sys­tem with the one-man, one-vote sys­tem to make the par­ty’s elec­toral sys­tem more de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and trans­par­ent.

Out­side of the an­nu­al con­ven­tion, the gen­er­al coun­cil is the high­est or­gan of the par­ty. Giv­en Dr Row­ley’s in­sis­tence on a more de­mo­c­ra­t­ic se­lec­tion process with­in the PNM, one would pre­sume that se­lect­ing a re­place­ment would have been done at the gen­er­al coun­cil with con­fir­ma­tion at a con­ven­tion lat­er. This process has been cir­cum­vent­ed, and the gen­er­al coun­cil is pre­sent­ed with a fait ac­com­pli.

By stay­ing on as the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal leader, Dr Row­ley will con­tin­ue to pre­side over the screen­ing of 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates, pre­sum­ably se­lect­ing those most like­ly to sup­port his “suc­ces­sion plan.” Will the PNM’s gen­er­al coun­cil rub­ber-stamp this process?