PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC -Energy and Energy Industries Minister Stuart Young will be sworn in as Trinidad and Tobago’s seventh prime minister on Monday, even as the main opposition, United National Congress (UNC), continued to oppose his taking over the Government.
“You are hereby invited to attend a ceremony for the appointment of a Prime Minister, the occasion for the appointment of the Prime Minister having arisen. The ceremony will occur at the President’s Office on Monday, March 17th, at 10. am. I look forward to welcoming you,” according to the invitation sent out by President Christine Kangaroo.
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar has called on Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley to rethink the issue, saying, “I am warning you, should you proceed with this manner recklessly, Rowley, you Stuart Young and the President would face the brilliant UNC lawyers in the courthouse of Trinidad and Tobago.
“You cannot proceed under section 76 (1) of the Constitution where there is an occasion to appoint a prime minister, and the President should appoint a member of the House who is the Leader of the House.
“Rowley 76 (1), the word leader is spelled with a capital L. When the Constitution was changed, they changed it from Leader with a standard l to Leader with a capital L, which can only be the Leader of the party in the House, Rowley.
“And then you cannot proceed under 76 (b) Rowley; you can’t go over 76 (b) either because that says, where it appears to the President, the party does not have an undisputed leader.
“As long as Rowley holds on to the leadership, there is a disputed leader. So, you cannot proceed under 76 (1) A or B,” Persad Bissessar said.
But Prime Minister Rowley, 75, said that the UNC has had a history of challenging the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) in the courts and losing, reminding the population that the opposition party owes the PNM millions of dollars in costs for cases it has lost in recent years.
“You coming to tell me now that people who can’t manage their affairs in their party want to advise the PNM on law about what happens in the PNM and what happens in prime ministership?”
Speaking in a pre-recorded television interview program aired on Thursday night, Prime Minister Rowley brushed aside the concerns of the Opposition Leader, telling viewers that he does not advise himself and that the legal advice he received has found nothing to prevent the Energy Minister from taking over the Government.
“I have been around quite a while and have always told you that I do not advise myself in law, whether I am minister or prime minister. I have sought sound legal advice in everything I have done because I am a responsible state officer.
“So if you see me doing that, assume I am properly advised by law. But my lawyer isn’t on any platform talking foolishness. My lawyer advises me quietly. And to the extent that the Government is involved, I presume that the Government has been appropriately informed, and so (has) the President.
“We have a country with structures. You drink a rum and go on a platform and shout waylay, waylay, waylay. That is not how the country is to be run. That kind of behavior is characteristic of this individual. And I am surprised you all take her seriously all the time,” Rowley said without naming Persad Bissessar by name.
“It is not part of my thought process. Have you gone to any lawyer, and I don’t mean any university lecturer who thinks he is a lawyer; have you gone to any serious senior counsel and asked that senior counsel what is being said here or what is required here?” he asked the three reporters posing questions to him on the program that had been titled “From Mason Hall to Whitehall: The Closing Chapter,” named after a book he had published on becoming prime minister.
Prime Minister Rowley, who earlier this year, announced his decision to step down from office after 45 years in politics, said during the wide-ranging 100-minute television interview that the selection of Young, 50, was not done in a dictatorial manner and that he did not cast a vote in the election for the new prime minister.
“The selection of a member of the parliamentary caucus to lead was done by secret ballot. If I’m the only dictator that runs the dictation by way of a secret ballot, then I could live with that,” Rowley said, adding that Young had emerged as a leader early in his tenure as a minister.
“Leadership emerges when situations demand…Stuart Young did not have his portfolio when I appointed my first cabinet. I placed him in the Office of the Attorney General for a while, and I maintained him in the Office of the Prime Minister mainly because he was an excellent lawyer and would serve well in that capacity. And he demonstrated certain qualities that propelled him along.
Rowley said Young’s skills, dedication, and qualities became apparent to him and others.
“It got to the point that I could send him (to negotiations) without being there, and the people who he was going to talk to knew that he came from the Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister highly regarded him,” he said, adding that Young’s skills left him well-suited for the job.
“If he has a strength, it is his people skills and dedication that show over time.”
During the interview, Prime Minister Rowley said he had long signaled his intention to quit active politics. He said he was also looking forward to handing over the party’s leadership since he has no intention of “holding on to anything.”
“I am ensuring that the country, as far as I can, within the law of the country and the PNM constitution, I am trying to ensure that there is a smooth transition so that when I move out of this office, whoever moves in, that the country will not be disadvantaged, that the Government would even benefit. And that that is done within the Constitution of the country.
“And the same thing with the PNM—that when I move out as political Leader, I don’t scatter the pearls and ensure that the PNM, if I can, is strengthened and not weakened. Because a strong PNM makes a strong Trinidad and Tobago,” he added.
Asked what he felt his legacy would be, Rowley said he hoped it would be that he “must have done something good.”
“Some will remember me for what they didn’t get, and some will remember me for what they achieved during my tenure and what I did to put them in a better position. I have a stack of thank-you cards in my office at St Ann’s from people who saw it fit, for one reason or another, to buy a card, write it, and send it to me.
“And the ones that I appreciate the most are the ones that tell me how the policy or how the action would have put them or their children in a better position going forward,” Rowley said, insisting that, unlike others, he had not allowed the Office of the Prime Minister to dictate his character and that he felt “very much” connected to the regular man.
“Whatever I am is what I’ve been. I didn’t become that with office. I am respectful, fair (and) responsible. Some people would have issues with who I am, but that’s who I am. And that’s who you ask to manage your affairs. I now have a responsibility to manage it to the best of my ability, and that’s what I’ve done.
However, the outgoing prime minister expressed disappointment that he could not have done more to address the crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago.
He cited the breakdown of the family and the commercialisation of crime in the form of organised criminal conduct, suggesting that the existing state of emergency would not be extended.
He said one reason his administration had imposed the state of emergency was that some people felt it was a panacea.
“Now that we have done it, those people calling for a state of emergency, I hope they would have been satisfied that it is not a panacea. It allowed the police to do certain things but did not prevent the criminals from carrying on with what they had intended to do in many instances…
“The high level of activity and the SoE would have given them something extra, but it has not removed the revolving door. It has not removed the criminal mind. It has not removed the commercial enterprise in crime, and of course, it has not opened the Government to more authority in fighting crime,” he said.
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