Kay-Marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

As Dr Kei­th Row­ley pre­pares to pass the prime min­is­te­r­i­al ba­ton to En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who will take on the reins of lead­er­ship start­ing tomor­row, po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents weigh in on his near­ly ten years of gov­ern­ing the coun­try.

De­spite the con­stant po­lit­i­cal pres­sure and crit­i­cism he faced, both Win­ston Dook­er­an, for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), and Gary Grif­fith, leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), have ap­plaud­ed Dr Row­ley’s con­tri­bu­tions to the coun­try.

Dook­er­an told Guardian Me­dia that, un­like his pre­de­ces­sors, Dr Row­ley is the first prime min­is­ter who will leave of­fice on his own terms, feel­ing that he has com­plet­ed his job, rather than be­ing vot­ed out. Since the death of Dr Er­ic Williams, every oth­er prime min­is­ter of T&T has stepped down af­ter los­ing an elec­tion.

Dook­er­an said, “If you go back to our first prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, re­gret­tably, he had passed on, and that was the first prime min­is­ter who left of­fice by virtue of hav­ing passed on. Since then, every oth­er prime min­is­ter would have left of­fice with the feel­ing that the work that they have done is not yet fin­ished.

“And, I sense that has been the trend over the suc­ces­sion of sub­se­quent prime min­is­ters. Whether it was Mr Man­ning who suc­ceed­ed, or whether it was Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly, or in­deed, whether it was Mr Bas­deo Pan­day, all of whom I had very good work­ing re­la­tions with, I al­ways felt that they left of­fice with the feel­ing that their work had not been fin­ished. And that’s the dif­fer­ence, I be­lieve, with them and what Dr Row­ley is fac­ing.”

Dook­er­an added, “He has been a re­flec­tive prime min­is­ter. He has been able to hold this sit­u­a­tion to­geth­er, and he has been able to come to terms with his head held high. I com­pli­ment him for the work that he has done dur­ing these last ten years. I al­so think that he did a re­mark­able thing in try­ing to or­gan­ise the tran­si­tion for his suc­ces­sor­ship in the way that he has done so that there will be an ease with which the peo­ple will feel a sense of se­cu­ri­ty. Many times, tran­si­tions are them­selves a prob­lem, but this is not so, at least at this point in time.”

Agree­ing, Grif­fith thanked Dr Row­ley for his many years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice, even re­call­ing good times they shared.

Grif­fith said, “When it comes to lead­er­ship, at times, there’s no right or wrong lead­er­ship. Some­times it is how you are pre­served. In lead­er­ship, not every­one will like you. Some will dis­like you. Some will hate you. As it per­tains to Dr Kei­th Row­ley, he spent four odd decades in na­tion­al ser­vice ... In the pe­ri­od that I was there work­ing along­side or with or against Dr Kei­th Row­ley, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the sad of Dr Row­ley. We worked well to­geth­er. That was the good I saw in Dr Row­ley when he was try­ing his best to en­sure that Trinidad and To­ba­go could be as safe as pos­si­ble (dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic).

“We may not have liked your style, your de­ci­sions made be­cause you would have made mis­takes as we all do. We are all hu­man. But even though you would have made mis­takes, on be­half of all of those lev­el-head­ed, think­ing cit­i­zens of this coun­try, we wish to thank you for your many years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to this coun­try.”

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Alexan­der could not find a pos­i­tive thing to say when it comes to Dr Row­ley’s lega­cy.

While a con­tent Dr Row­ley said he has “no re­grets” as he demits of­fice, in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s opin­ion, Dr Row­ley has no care or em­pa­thy.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Typ­i­cal of his dic­ta­to­r­i­al ar­ro­gance and self­ish­ness. He has no re­grets about rais­ing his pay and pen­sion while giv­ing work­ers four per cent. No re­grets on 5,000 mur­dered cit­i­zens or 60,000 lost jobs. The man has no care or em­pa­thy.”

Asked what he thinks Dr Row­ley’s lega­cy would be, Alexan­der said, “He is a very po­lar­is­ing in­di­vid­ual. He is very abra­sive. He is deroga­to­ry to the pub­lic. He calls peo­ple stu­pid. All of those things will be his lega­cy. He’s taint­ed the of­fice.”

From po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to the av­er­age cit­i­zen, some peo­ple told Guardian Me­dia they be­lieve the time has come for Dr Row­ley to re­tire.

Care­nage res­i­dent Gre­go­ry Ryan said, “Dr Row­ley should have left be­fore now. He take too long to leave.”

Re­nal­do Seep­aul, 22, from cen­tral Trinidad, said, “I wish he would have done more for the coun­try.”

Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent Shakil­la Jones, 26, mean­while, said, “Dr Row­ley could have done more for the youths, for the bet­ter­ment of the youths, the liveli­hood of the youths. He did his part. Now is the time for him to go. Bless­ings to him and all his fu­ture en­deav­ours. Take care, bye-bye.”

Dr Row­ley will ce­ment his tran­si­tion of pow­er to Young at Wood­ford Square to­day.

How­ev­er, he said he would re­main the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.