DOES ROWLEY HAVE HUBRIS SYNDROME?

IN 2009, Professor Selwyn Ryan conducted a survey in which four out of five respondents said then-Prime Minister Patrick Manning was afflicted with hubris syndrome.

In Trinidad and Tobago parlance, hubris syndrome is crudely defined as “power gone to his head.”

In the medical world, hubris is identified as someone with power developing an exaggerated sense of importance, leading to contempt for criticism and advice, and obsession with his image and stature.

Mere months before, Manning had hosted Commonwealth and Summit of the Americas conferences, rubbing shoulders with Queen Elizabeth 11, United States President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and a phalanx of other global leaders.

He had considered leasing a private jet for international trips, granted Calder Hart a virtual blank cheque for public projects, and generally adopted the posture of an authoritarian figure.

Commentators derided his high-handedness.

Manning’s party successor, Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley did not waste time in becoming autocratic, since it fitted snugly into his severe and bossy personality.

In fact, Manning had earlier depicted Rowley as “a raging bull” and a “wajang.”

Rowley’s leadership of T&T has been demarked by his unwillingness to accept censure and critical analysis, his combustible manner and his snobbish style.

High and mighty, you could term him.

“He has failed to apply himself to his tasks to get the job done,” Professor Selwyn Cudjoe wrote.

Cudjoe pondered that Rowley has become “so filled with hubris that he can’t be bothered to devote the sustained time and attention that his job requires.”

The Prime Minister “hasn’t taken up his duty as seriously and as assiduously as he should,” the professor said.

With that imperious manner, it is not surprising that Rowley is cold and insensitive toward the crime crisis and raging other national issues.

He has never provided effective leadership on the national security emergency, nor on the cost of living, joblessness, poverty and other urgent situations.

Contributing to the Budget debate, he did not sympathise with the loved ones of crime victims, and did not reference the attempted assassination mere hours earlier of Deputy Prisons Commissioner Sherwin Bruce.

Rowley has little time for empathy.

He is the forever tough-talking warrior.

His leadership is not framed around day-to-day issues that burden the lives of ordinary citizens.

It is symbolic that he often begins his day in strife-torn T&T by playing a round of golf.

With that perspective, he is not interested in the tedious give-and-take of the much-anticipated anti-crime discussions between the Government and Opposition.

In keeping with his imperious manner, he has delegated that chore to political underlings, who would duly report to him, after which he would posture politically.

Every right-thinking citizen thinks, like the Express newspaper, that “Rowley would be ill-advised, politically and otherwise, to absent himself from these important meetings.”

But our leader prefers the hi-jinks of political bluster rather than the substance of sorting out T&T’s most critical issue.

Problem-solving is not his forte.

Hubris has set in and Rowley would not easily be persuaded to put in the hard work of saving his country from murderous criminals.

Power has gone to his head!