Af­ter keep­ing the coun­try guess­ing for sev­er­al weeks, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has fi­nal­ly lift­ed the lid on when he will demit of­fice.

Dr Row­ley yes­ter­day took ad­van­tage of a com­mis­sion­ing and re­nam­ing cer­e­mo­ny held in ho­n­our of de­ceased Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian—who per­ished with two of her chil­dren in the house fire on De­cem­ber 16—to an­nounce his March 16 re­tire­ment date.

“I too am end­ing my tenure in pub­lic ser­vice, thank­ful­ly, not sad­ly, but with a cer­tain amount of sat­is­fac­tion,” said Dr Row­ley dur­ing the event at which O’Meara Road was for­mal­ly re­named Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian Boule­vard.

He re­flect­ed on the na­ture of po­lit­i­cal life, re­mind­ing those gath­ered that it is al­ways tem­po­rary.

“Many peo­ple in pub­lic life do not be­lieve or for­get that your ser­vice in pub­lic life is re­al­ly for a pe­ri­od. Doesn’t mat­ter how good you are, how im­por­tant you think you are, it’s all about a spe­cif­ic pe­ri­od,” the Prime Min­is­ter said in sober re­flec­tion while ex­press­ing per­son­al sat­is­fac­tion with his tenure in of­fice.

Be­fore leav­ing of­fice in just over two weeks, the Prime Min­is­ter is due to open the new Cen­tral Block of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on March 10 and the new ANR Robin­son Air­port project on March 15.

No doubt, these two projects are very near and dear to the Prime Min­is­ter’s heart, es­pe­cial­ly the lat­ter, which can per­haps be viewed as his lega­cy project—a Prime Min­is­ter from To­ba­go leav­ing be­hind a new ter­mi­nal for the is­land, which de­pends on tourism.

At 75, Row­ley is the old­est per­son to sit in the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter in T&T. He will be suc­ceed­ed by Stu­art Young, who, at 50, will be the youngest.

The age gap be­tween them high­lights the tran­si­tion ahead.

Dr Row­ley’s de­par­ture ends near­ly five decades in pub­lic ser­vice. His­to­ry is usu­al­ly the best judge of one’s lega­cy but cer­tain­ly, Prime Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Young is tak­ing over as head of gov­ern­ment at a time of chal­lenge not on­ly po­lit­i­cal­ly, but so­cial­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly.

With gen­er­al elec­tions con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due by Au­gust, the burn­ing ques­tion on every­one’s lips is when will Young ring the prover­bial elec­tion bell? Will it be soon­er rather than lat­er, or will he go full dis­tance?

Fol­low­ing the re­cent con­tro­ver­sy with­in the PNM over his se­lec­tion as Row­ley’s suc­ces­sor, it is al­so left to be seen if his in­ter­nal sup­port holds firm post-Row­ley.

With the coun­try un­der a State of Emer­gency for the past two months, and mur­ders, rob­beries and home in­va­sions con­tin­u­ing with­out pause, crime re­mains the great­est na­tion­al headache, with the econ­o­my fol­low­ing as a close sec­ond in a Trump era when the fu­ture of the Drag­on Gas deal signed with Venezuela—un­der a Unit­ed States OFAC li­cence—un­cer­tain amid dwin­dling en­er­gy rev­enues.

If the Drag­on deal col­laps­es be­cause of geopol­i­tics, T&T will be forced to piv­ot, but more than that, the fruits of that deal will not be ful­ly re­alised un­til 2027. The forex cri­sis al­so presents on­go­ing chal­lenges that Young will need to ad­dress.

His pend­ing as­cen­den­cy to the Of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter there­fore comes to the fore at a cru­cial time for this coun­try. In­deed, the ques­tion re­mains about whether he will be able to weath­er the in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal storms that lie ahead and rise to the chal­lenge of na­tion­al lead­er­ship.

Time will cer­tain­ly tell.