Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A new Cab­i­net team will be ap­point­ed af­ter En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young is sworn in as Prime Min­is­ter on Mon­day - and that will in­clude a new At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Young, 50, will be sworn in­to of­fice as Prime Min­is­ter by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

Where his Cab­i­net team is con­cerned, Sec­tion 77 (3a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion stip­u­lates that on the ap­point­ment of a new PM—or reap­point­ment of a PM—all Min­is­ters must va­cate their re­spec­tive of­fices.

A Cab­i­net for Young must there­fore be ap­point­ed to run the Gov­ern­ment in the pe­ri­od lead­ing to the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

The cur­rent Cab­i­net mem­bers are ex­pect­ed to be reap­point­ed or a few pos­si­bly “re­arranged,” sources pro­ject­ed. There are cur­rent­ly 24 mem­bers, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour’s tenure is among those end­ing when Young is ap­point­ed.

East­ern Caribbean sources have con­firmed that Ar­mour has been of­fered the post of Jus­tice of Ap­peal of the East­ern Caribbean Court of Ap­peal and will be sworn in­to that post on Mon­day af­ter­noon.

Ar­mour hasn’t re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia out­reach on the is­sue. But we have been re­li­ably in­formed that T&T’s new AG will al­so be sworn in Mon­day with Young’s Cab­i­net.

The PNM Gov­ern­ment has four se­nior coun­sels—Young, Ar­mour, for­mer AG Faris Al-Rawi and Kei­th Scot­land.

On Thurs­day there was spec­u­la­tion that Min­is­ter in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Scot­land may be ap­point­ed AG. The Port-of-Spain South MP had been a back­bencher un­til last year when he was ap­point­ed to the min­istry.

Al-Rawi’s name is al­so be­ing ref­er­enced in con­nec­tion with the post, as he was pre­vi­ous­ly AG from 2015-2022 be­fore be­ing re­placed by Ar­mour.

Al-Rawi has been cred­it­ed in the Gov­ern­ment as pass­ing land­mark leg­is­la­tion, right­ing le­gal is­sues left over from the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment’s tenure, man­ag­ing le­gal­i­ties in the un­prece­dent­ed pan­dem­ic pe­ri­od and helm­ing Gov­ern­ment’s suc­cess­ful Pi­ar­co Air­port case in the Mi­a­mi courts.

How­ev­er, it’s been not­ed that Al-Rawi, who leads the Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry, is al­so need­ed there and crit­i­cal mat­ters in the min­istry might be jeop­ar­dised if he’s moved at this stage be­fore elec­tion.

There’s al­so been spec­u­la­tion on whether the AG may be fe­male.

Sources who’ve spec­u­lat­ed about changes in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty—cur­rent­ly held by Fitzger­ald Hinds—al­so ex­pressed con­cern on per­for­mance lev­els at this eleventh-hour be­fore elec­tions and whether too many changes in the Cab­i­net may sac­ri­fice the work in progress.

To­mor­row, the PNM holds an all-day ral­ly in Port-of-Spain ho­n­our­ing Row­ley—who re­signs to­mor­row—and to launch its 41 gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates. This will be pre­ced­ed by a 10 am spe­cial con­ven­tion at City Hall for del­e­gates and oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Af­ter that, at­ten­dees will con­verge on Wood­ford Square along with PN­Mites from the 41 con­stituen­cies for the can­di­date pre­sen­ta­tion. Row­ley ad­dress­es both events.

Young will al­so speak on the eve of his ap­point­ment as PM.