ROWLEY PULLS A ‘WILLIAMS’

PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Rowley seems to have pulled a retirement ploy in a similar vein to Dr. Eric Williams, Trinidad and Tobago’s first Prime Minister and founding leader of People’s National Movement (PNM). 

Rowley said in a new media interview that he has no plans to retire, adding: “I will be around for a while, God willing.” 

Quizzed about retirement, he stressed: “Not as Prime Minister.” 

That declaration is in sharp contrast to what he said on August 10, 2020, when he led PNM to national electoral victory. 

On election night, Rowley told party supporters: “This can easily be my last term in politics in Trinidad and Tobago. 

“I am not one of those politicians who believe that when you come into office, you should go out feet first. 

“I have places to go and people to see.” 

He added: “But more importantly, I have a commitment to ensure that this is a period of transition in the PNM. 

“And as the longest-serving member in the Parliament who will continue to serve another term, I have a duty and a responsibility during this term to fashion the PNM’s future by ensuring that our young people are developed in such a way that when I am no longer in this position to announce an election victory, that the country would not be deprived of the leadership it deserves.” 

His statement was a broad suggestion that he would not lead PNM into the next general election, constitutionally due in 2025. 

Rowley, who turns 72 in two months, has had health issues in recent years. 

There is widespread speculation that Government Minister Pennelope Beckles-Robinson is a frontrunner to succeed him. 

Beckles-Robinson has increased her national profile in recent months. 

Rowley’s backtracking on retirement is a throwback to Dr. Williams’ September 1973 ruse, when he told a PNM assembly at Chaguaramas Convention Centre of his planned departure. 

“Like a bridge over troubled waters, I will lay me down,” Williams said, quoting a popular song of the period. 

It was felt that his decision was prompted by the poor state of the economy. 

Williams asked PNM to launch a search for a successor, and then-Attorney General Karl Hudson-Phillips and then-Government Minister Kamaluddin Mohammed announced their respective candidacies. 

Hudson-Phillips emerged as the runaway choice of party faithful. 

Williams reneged on his retirement and led Trinidad and Tobago through the first energy boom, which began in 1974 when the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries cartel imposed an international oil embargo. 

He took PNM to electoral victory in 1976. 

Hudson-Phillips resigned from national office and formed Organisation for National Reconstruction (ONR), which unsuccessfully fought the 1981 general election.  

Williams died in office in March 1981, at age 69. 

Rowley entered Parliament in 1987 as an opposition senator, and has been elected to the House of Representatives in each general election since 1991.