OUTRAGE is boiling in the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) over Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley’s determined plan to foist Stuart Young as the next political leader.
Several key government ministers, Members of Parliament, Senators and party officials, especially of the Women’s League, are fuming at Rowley’s overt aim to sponsor Young as the next boss of the 68-year-old party.
“This is offensive and crude,” a prominent government and party official reportedly told a gathering of like-minded PNM colleagues at a social gathering a few days ago.
At that get-together – and other similar informal assemblies – party diehards are venting fury and considering joint reaction to Young’s meteoric rise and Rowley’s succession plan.
Some members, including a top-level official, expressed disenchantment when Young recently addressed a meeting of the Women’s League.
Infuriated PNMites are contending that Rowley is threatening the party’s stability and political future by anointing Young, who is seen as privileged and not conscious of the plight of the suffering masses.
Young, who was a backroom attorney a decade and a half ago, has soared in the party, to become Chairman, a post previously reserved for venerable and matured officials like Francis Prevatt.
He manages the portfolio of the critically important energy ministry, and is the principal negotiator on the bountiful cross-border natural gas deals with Venezuela.
Rowley has dubbed Young his “Gary Sobers,” a likening to the most versatile and acclaimed cricketer of all times.
In addition, Young has been given his second successive stint as Acting Prime Minister, in the process displacing the more seasoned Colm Imbert, who pegged down the post for nine years.
He is a minister in the office of the Prime Minister, which permits his involvement in virtually all aspects of national governance.
Young, 66, an attorney who represents the PNM safe seat of Port of Spain North-St. Ann’s West, was controversially elevated to senior counsel last June.
He is from a family of professionals, with his father and brother being influential bankers.
Rowley, who turns 75 next month and has health challenges, has been focusing on political transition.
He recently said when change takes place the party will be “left in good hands for posterity and for the future.”
Much of the rage against Young’s upper-class background is centred on “the needs of the Black group being left unattended or neglected,” as Professor Selwyn Cudjoe previously argued.
Cudjoe last year urged party leaders “to recognise how important Black people are to the sustenance of the party.”
Some commentators have accused Rowley of heavily favouring the tiny business oligarchs, some of whom he represents as Member of Parliament for Diego Martin West.
Research has shown that the rich has generally grown richer in recent years while many in the working class have become poor and dispossessed.
Food imports, controlled by a tiny cartel, is now costing the country a historic $7.3 billion a year, there are business monopolies, and growing profits by private sector conglomerates.
“There is nothing wrong with the rich getting richer,” Rowley said in 2020.
Cudjoe cautioned Rowley to be “careful about imposing Young or any member of the moneyed class on the party, especially since the party’s base consists mainly of Black people.”
He said that of the 220,000 votes the PNM received in the 2020 general election, 190,000 came from Black people.
“No party leader should take them for granted.”
Young has been addressing PNM constituency groups across the nation as the country prepares for the general election.
He is said to have close ties with past and prospective deep-pocket PNM financiers.
