Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Fer­di­nand “Fer­die” Fer­reira, a found­ing mem­ber of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and sea­soned po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor, has called for Dr Kei­th Row­ley to re­lin­quish his role as par­ty po­lit­i­cal leader be­fore the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Fer­reira said that Row­ley, as chair­man of the PNM’s screen­ing com­mit­tee, has al­ready se­lect­ed a team for an­oth­er leader to guide.

“How will that work out? My own view is that the new Prime Min­is­ter should not on­ly take con­trol of the Gov­ern­ment but al­so the par­ty. It is on­ly then we will see the re­al Stu­art Young,” Fer­reira said.

If Row­ley fol­lows through on his in­ten­tion to step down as PNM leader be­fore his term ends in 2026, Fer­reira be­lieves the par­ty’s gen­er­al coun­cil will ap­point an in­ter­im leader un­til in­ter­nal elec­tions are held.

“The con­sti­tu­tion is ab­solute­ly clear—the gen­er­al coun­cil will se­lect an in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader un­til it is con­firmed by the con­ven­tion,” Fer­reira ex­plained.

Row­ley, who of­fi­cial­ly re­signed as prime min­is­ter on Sun­day, an­nounced on Face­book: “While my term of of­fice as Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the PNM legal­ly runs un­til 2026, it is my in­ten­tion to va­cate the po­si­tion at the ear­li­est in con­sul­ta­tion with the Lead­er­ship of the Move­ment.”

Fer­reira em­pha­sised that ad­her­ence to the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion is cru­cial, not­ing that the gen­er­al coun­cil holds supreme au­thor­i­ty out­side the an­nu­al con­ven­tion. He re­called a sim­i­lar sce­nario in 2010 when for­mer leader Patrick Man­ning re­signed af­ter the PNM’s de­feat at the polls.

“Re­mem­ber the se­quence of events. He walked with his res­ig­na­tion let­ter but of­fered to stay on un­til a new leader was se­lect­ed. The gen­er­al coun­cil re­ject­ed that pro­pos­al and, for want of a bet­ter term, asked him to leave. The same coun­cil then se­lect­ed Dr Row­ley as tem­po­rary po­lit­i­cal leader.” 

Fer­reira ac­knowl­edged dif­fer­ing opin­ions with­in the par­ty re­gard­ing Row­ley’s de­par­ture. Some be­lieve it was time for him to step aside, while oth­ers wel­comed Stu­art Young’s po­ten­tial lead­er­ship. Fer­reira sug­gest­ed the par­ty might be bet­ter po­si­tioned for the gen­er­al elec­tions un­der Young’s lead­er­ship.

He drew par­al­lels to 1981 when the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion (ONR) gained mo­men­tum. Fol­low­ing the death of T&T’s first Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers emerged as act­ing po­lit­i­cal leader and prime min­is­ter, shift­ing the po­lit­i­cal pen­du­lum back to the PNM.

“And the record will show that with the emer­gence of George Michael Cham­bers, a po­lit­i­cal­ly un­known fig­ure, the pen­du­lum swung back to the PNM. Now, would his­to­ry re­peat it­self?”

That cam­paign se­cured the PNM 26 seats, its high­est ever. Fer­reira al­so high­light­ed the 2010 elec­tions, af­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­placed Bas­deo Pan­day as Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader. Her coali­tion de­feat­ed Man­ning’s PNM af­ter he called ear­ly elec­tions.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Prof Hamid Ghany weighed in on Row­ley’s dual roles. Speak­ing on CNC3, Ghany not­ed that while Row­ley re­mains PNM leader, no one has ques­tioned his de­ci­sion to re­tain the post af­ter step­ping down as prime min­is­ter.

With Row­ley con­trol­ling the par­ty, while Young now con­trols the Cab­i­net, he said the new Prime Min­is­ter must make some re­arrange­ments.