KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

When it comes to the tran­si­tion of gov­er­nance in Trinidad and To­ba­go, there’s been no short­age of con­tro­ver­sy, whether it’s be­ing ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter due to the death of a sit­ting leader, or through a snap elec­tion, the cit­i­zens of T&T have seen it all. Or have we?

In less than ten days, Dr Kei­th Row­ley will be­come the first prime min­is­ter to demit of­fice be­fore the le­gal lim­it of his term ends when he of­fi­cial­ly re­signs on March 16.

This is some­thing that he’s been hint­ing at for quite some time, but noth­ing the coun­try has ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore.

Row­ley is T&T’s sev­enth prime min­is­ter and his unique ex­it will see him join the ranks of lead­ers who caused tur­bu­lence in tran­si­tion, a trend—it ap­pears—with­in T&T’s rich po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry.

The death of the “Fa­ther of the Na­tion,” Dr Er­ic Williams, on March 29, 1981, put an end to his 19-year reign as prime min­is­ter, af­ter serv­ing as leader from In­de­pen­dence in 1962, mak­ing room for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, George Cham­bers, to be­come T&T’s sec­ond prime min­is­ter.

But, Cham­bers’ lead­er­ship would end in 1986 af­ter he not on­ly lost the PNM’s con­trol of gov­ern­ment but al­so be­came the on­ly prime min­is­ter to lose his seat in an elec­tion as well.

Arthur Napoleon Ray­mond (ANR) Robin­son then took the helm from 1986 to 1991 as T&T’s third prime min­is­ter.

But as his­to­ry would have it, the im­pli­ca­tions of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup by the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen and grow­ing pub­lic pres­sure based on eco­nom­ic de­ci­sions - in­clud­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion of tax­es - forced him out, let­ting the PNM back in of­fice, this time with Patrick Man­ning as prime min­is­ter num­ber four for T&T.

But Man­ning had the grand idea to call a snap elec­tion and gave the op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) the up­per hand, with Bas­deo Pan­day be­com­ing his suc­ces­sor and T&T’s fifth prime min­is­ter in 1995.

Pan­day was the first leader of In­do-her­itage.

Pan­day too had his fair share of con­tro­ver­sy, as he faced ear­ly elec­tions for three con­sec­u­tive years in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

This was af­ter the UNC lost its ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives fol­low­ing the lack of sup­port of three dis­si­dents, for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters Ralph Maraj, Trevor Su­dama and Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj.

The UNC and PNM then both win 18 seats in the gen­er­al elec­tion, but then-pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son nom­i­nat­ed Man­ning as prime min­is­ter.

Man­ning gov­erned un­til 2010 and once again called a snap elec­tion ex­pect­ing a win but los­ing at the polls.

Then came a new UNC al­liance - the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship- which cre­at­ed his­to­ry for T&T with Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­com­ing the first fe­male prime min­is­ter in 2010. Fast for­ward to 2015, where Row­ley led the PNM back in­to of­fice. He won the gen­er­al elec­tion in 2015 and again in 2020.

In­stead of at­tempt­ing to go for a hat­trick, how­ev­er, Row­ley an­nounced his de­ci­sion to re­sign as prime min­is­ter on Jan­u­ary 3 this year, mark­ing an end to 45 years in pub­lic life. He is pass­ing the ba­ton to a younger PNM mem­ber in En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who is ex­pect­ed to put on the prime min­is­te­r­i­al hat when Row­ley steps aside. Row­ley will, how­ev­er, stay on as PNM leader un­til the par­ty choos­es some­one to take over lead­er­ship.