DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s lead­er­ship style has long been a defin­ing fea­ture of his tenure as prime min­is­ter and as he pre­pares to ex­it the po­lit­i­cal stage, re­flec­tions on his lega­cy are as var­ied as the peo­ple he served.

Mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) praise Dr Row­ley’s ded­i­ca­tion to na­tion­al progress while crit­ics point to his con­fronta­tion­al ap­proach and the con­tro­ver­sies that arose dur­ing his time in of­fice.

A cor­ner­stone of Dr Row­ley’s tenure as Prime Min­is­ter has been his fiery, un­apolo­getic de­bat­ing style, a trait high­light­ed by for­mer PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford.

Ford first crossed paths with Row­ley in the 1981 gen­er­al elec­tions, fol­low­ing the death of Dr Er­ic Williams. Both were young can­di­dates at the time, part of a wave of fresh faces en­ter­ing the po­lit­i­cal are­na un­der the lead­er­ship of then-Prime Min­is­ter George Cham­bers. Row­ley lost that elec­tion af­ter run­ning for the To­ba­go West seat, but it would not be the end of his po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tions.

Af­ter the PNM was dec­i­mat­ed by the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) in 1986, Row­ley re­turned to Par­lia­ment as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor in 1987. Ford said he quick­ly made a name for him­self as a fiery and fear­less speak­er, stand­ing along­side col­leagues

“He re­spond­ed (to crit­ics) and com­ing hard at you, you know. And this is what we in the PNM en­joyed be­cause, you know, diplo­ma­cy by Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers and Patrick Man­ning ... Not Dr Row­ley. You say some­thing, he com­ing at you. When they ac­cuse him of some­thing in terms of racism, in terms of nepo­tism, he com­ing at you and this is one of his great­est hall­marks as a prime min­is­ter,” he said.

Ford re­called that from the very be­gin­ning, Row­ley was a fight­er.

“He was so ex­plo­sive as a speak­er on the plat­form with his col­leagues in the Sen­ate, like Robin Mon­tano, Win­ston Moore, and so on. Be­cause we on­ly had three mem­bers in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Sen­ate had to step up and help in terms of pub­lic speak­ing, pub­lic pre­sen­ta­tion, and pre­sent­ing, and deal­ing with the faults of the gov­ern­ment at the time,” he added.

“Dr Row­ley came in as a fight­er in 1987, as a sen­a­tor, and as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment. He nev­er changed his ap­proach as an MP and as a min­is­ter.”

With­in his Cab­i­net, Dr Row­ley was re­spect­ed for his in­tegri­ty and un­wa­ver­ing lead­er­ship. Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les re­called Row­ley’s first piece of ad­vice to new­ly elect­ed MPs and min­is­ters in 2015: “Nev­er fall in love with of­fice.”

For Gon­za­les, this prin­ci­ple de­fined Row­ley’s lead­er­ship.

“So, there are a lot of de­ci­sions that Dr Row­ley made as prime min­is­ter that were very un­pop­u­lar from a po­lit­i­cal per­spec­tive, but in­so­far as it re­lates to the na­tion­al good, ben­e­fit­ed the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. And that, for me, is what per­sons in pub­lic life should as­pire to be.”

Gon­za­les’ ad­mi­ra­tion for Row­ley pre­dates his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer. As a law stu­dent, he wrote his mas­ter’s the­sis on the UDe­COTT con­tro­ver­sy, in which Row­ley pub­licly chal­lenged the ac­count­abil­i­ty of the state en­ti­ty and was ul­ti­mate­ly fired from Cab­i­net for his stance.

“It was an un­pop­u­lar stance with­in the PNM at the time,” Gon­za­les re­calls. “He lost his Cab­i­net po­si­tion and was rel­e­gat­ed to the back­bench. But he stood by his prin­ci­ples.”

Years lat­er, Gon­za­les found him­self serv­ing in Row­ley’s Cab­i­net, work­ing along­side the very man he had once stud­ied.

As Row­ley pre­pares to leave the po­lit­i­cal stage, Gon­za­les sees his de­par­ture as a tremen­dous loss.

“You’re talk­ing about 35, maybe 40 years of po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence—that kind of wis­dom is in­valu­able,” he said. “In Cab­i­net meet­ings and par­lia­men­tary de­bates, he would draw on decades of knowl­edge, guid­ing dis­cus­sions with the fore­sight of some­one who had seen it all be­fore.”

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, who once chal­lenged Row­ley for the lead­er­ship of the PNM, has had a unique per­spec­tive on his lead­er­ship. Work­ing close­ly with him as Prime Min­is­ter pro­vid­ed a front-row seat to a leader dri­ven by hard work, in­tegri­ty, and na­tion­al pride.

“Dr Row­ley has nev­er been ab­sorbed by per­son­al van­i­ties or over­ly fo­cused on ad­just­ing in­di­vid­ual per­cep­tions of his every at­tribute. He is a hard work­er who leads from the front and ex­pects his team to car­ry their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with in­tegri­ty. When he del­e­gates he does not mi­cro­man­age. He has abid­ing faith in our na­tion’s youth and the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of ed­u­ca­tion.”

Browne al­so saw the deeply per­son­al side of Row­ley’s lead­er­ship. He re­called Row­ley check­ing in on him and his fam­i­ly dur­ing his tenure as Am­bas­sador to Brazil, as the coun­try bat­tled the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“Each call end­ed with a sim­ple but pow­er­ful di­rec­tive: ‘Bat­ten down the hatch­es and press ahead. Take care of them.’”

For Browne, Row­ley was a leader who stood firm in his iden­ti­ty and prin­ci­ples and saw sim­i­lar­i­ties be­tween him and his suc­ces­sor, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

“PM Row­ley is one of the most prag­mat­ic per­sons I have met in my en­tire life. Along with Min­is­ter Stu­art R Young, he has made some im­por­tant de­ci­sions which will help shape our fu­ture for gen­er­a­tions. And of course, he has a char­ac­ter­is­tic that very few lead­ers have been able to find with­in them­selves ... that abil­i­ty to recog­nise the best time to call it a day and fa­cil­i­tate the next gen­er­a­tion of suc­cess. I would re­mem­ber him as a leader who was some­times mis­un­der­stood, but who al­ways act­ed bold­ly with a keen eye on the fu­ture of our land.”

“He has al­ways demon­strat­ed pride in the unique di­ver­si­ty of the na­tion that he has led, whilst at the same time be­ing ful­ly con­fi­dent in his past and fu­ture as a black man in a world that of­ten se­vere­ly un­der­val­ues per­sons of colour. He has nev­er ever been afraid to stand up for Trinidad and To­ba­go, to stand up for Cari­com, and to stand up for his prin­ci­ples. He adores fam­i­ly, and al­ways with­out fail en­quires of the well-be­ing of oth­ers, es­pe­cial­ly the chil­dren.”

Mean­while, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said the prime min­is­ter was stern but sup­port­ive to her.

“He was and is my po­lit­i­cal men­tor—a gi­ant of a man who is res­olute and fear­less, yet kind and fair. His man­ner gives ... tough love—he doesn’t stand for non­sense but al­lows young peo­ple to grow and make mis­takes.”

For a PNM mem­ber liv­ing in his con­stituen­cy, Row­ley’s lega­cy is de­fined by ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture projects and eco­nom­ic poli­cies.

Glen­coe hair­dress­er Natasha Par­ris said: “He took care of is­sues in re­gards to health and el­der­ly. He set up in­fra­struc­ture where we could have a more pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety. We have a lot of com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres that do a lot of pro­grammes. I ben­e­fit­ed from sev­er­al. The new hos­pi­tal, the in­ter­change which dealt with a lot of is­sues in­clud­ing flood­ing in the West Moor­ing area and widen­ing the high­way.”

Among life­long PNM sup­port­ers, opin­ions were hinged up­on sim­ple ac­tions. Ri­car­do Alex­is, a con­stituent, shared his per­spec­tive with a chuck­le: “It was good, yeah. He give meh ham­per and so on, yeah. I glad for that. He stop giv­ing meh ham­per now. And I lost five toes since af­ter that and he nev­er send noth­ing else for meh.”

As Row­ley pre­pares to step away from of­fice, PNM mem­bers say his lead­er­ship will leave a last­ing mark on the na­tion’s his­to­ry.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go moves for­ward, one thing is cer­tain—his tenure as Prime Min­is­ter will not be eas­i­ly for­got­ten.