As the PNM holds its con­ven­tion to­day to con­firm the re­sults of their in­ter­nal elec­tions, the is­sue of why they find them­selves hold­ing that con­ven­tion to­day in­stead of what was orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed by the for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, for Sep­tem­ber 28, nat­u­ral­ly comes in­to fo­cus.

This ought to have been a cel­e­bra­tion of a re­turn to of­fice for a third term. In­stead, it forms part of a re­build­ing ex­er­cise for the par­ty in op­po­si­tion.

In his Face­book re­sponse to Amery Browne on May 6, Kei­th Row­ley ad­dressed the is­sue of the PNM seek­ing a third term when he said:

“Third terms are huge­ly chal­leng­ing, even in good times and abun­dant re­sources.”

Row­ley was grap­pling with this ever since he was elect­ed for his sec­ond term in Au­gust 2020. He was un­like­ly to con­test any elec­tion for a third term be­cause he was un­der pres­sure from his fam­i­ly to re­tire based on his pub­lic pro­nounce­ments.

Dr Williams tried to walk away in Sep­tem­ber 1973 and came back in De­cem­ber 1973. He served un­til he died in of­fice in March 1981. He had won four gen­er­al elec­tions in a row (1956, 1961, 1966 and 1971) up to that point. He went on to win the 1976 gen­er­al elec­tion which was his last be­fore his death in 1981. In oth­er words, he served for five con­sec­u­tive terms.

George Cham­bers suc­ceed­ed Williams as prime min­is­ter in March 1981. In May 1981, the PNM held a con­ven­tion that of­fi­cial­ly ap­point­ed Cham­bers as po­lit­i­cal leader. He called an elec­tion for No­vem­ber 1981 which he won and the PNM served a sixth con­sec­u­tive term. In De­cem­ber 1986, Cham­bers lost his own seat apart from the PNM los­ing the elec­tion to the NAR 33-3.

When Patrick Man­ning was ap­point­ed leader of the Op­po­si­tion in De­cem­ber 1986, he was not con­firmed as po­lit­i­cal leader un­til he de­feat­ed Ae­neas Wills in a del­e­gate lead­er­ship con­test at the Jan­u­ary 1987 PNM con­ven­tion.

Man­ning had no suc­ces­sion plan as he served as po­lit­i­cal leader from 1987 to 2010 through four gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ries (1991, 2001, 2002 and 2007) and two gen­er­al elec­tion de­feats (1995 and 2000) be­fore he was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly re­moved in May 2010 af­ter his third gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat.

Kei­th Row­ley’s as­sump­tion as po­lit­i­cal leader in 2010 ush­ered in two gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ries in 2015 and 2020. He came up with a suc­ces­sion plan that was de­signed to bend the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture of our par­lia­men­tary sys­tem by en­gag­ing in an “ex­per­i­ment” of him re­main­ing as po­lit­i­cal leader, while Stu­art Young was force-fed on the PNM gov­ern­ment as its prime min­is­ter on March 17.

The en­su­ing in­di­ges­tion led to the par­ty suf­fer­ing a hu­mil­i­at­ing de­feat on April 28 to the UNC Coali­tion of In­ter­ests in Trinidad. Over in To­ba­go, the PNM lost their two seats to the TPP. The suc­ces­sion plan “ex­per­i­ment” back­fired as it was based on the premise that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was un­e­lec­table so the PNM could try out the “ex­per­i­ment”.

The suc­ces­sion plan did not come from be­low, it was im­posed from on top. The most crit­i­cal per­son in the en­tire process was the Pres­i­dent who could have de­cid­ed that sub­sec­tion 76(1)(a) was not the ap­pro­pri­ate sub­sec­tion un­der which to make the ap­point­ment be­cause Dr Row­ley was still the Leader in the House of the PNM. Will­ing­ness or un­will­ing­ness to serve as PM was im­ma­te­r­i­al to his sta­tus as par­ty leader as he him­self was mak­ing the sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the two.

The Pres­i­dent ought to have used her dis­cre­tionary pow­ers un­der sec­tion 80(3) to in­sist that the suc­ces­sion plan be­ing hatched was go­ing to re­sult in the PNM hav­ing no undis­put­ed leader in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and, there­fore, it would have been nec­es­sary for her to ap­point Stu­art Young un­der sec­tion 76(1)(b) that caters for par­ties that com­mand a ma­jor­i­ty with no undis­put­ed leader.

In­stead, a very bad prece­dent was set and jus­ti­fied in writ­ing by the Pres­i­dent. The PNM was de­nied a third term by a com­bi­na­tion of po­lit­i­cal bul­ly­ing, po­lit­i­cal bungling and pres­i­den­tial er­ror. So to­day, the PNM con­ven­tion will cer­ti­fy the re­sults of its in­ter­nal elec­tions that should have been held last No­vem­ber but were not be­cause that was the first step in the “ex­per­i­ment” as the in­ter­nal elec­tions and con­ven­tion were can­celled.

The in­ter­nal cam­paign re­vealed that par­ty mem­bers were an­gry and re­sort­ed to a scorched earth ap­proach against their for­mer leader be­cause they were re­moved from of­fice by a flawed “ex­per­i­ment”, not to men­tion the fact that the lead­er­ship mis­read the op­po­si­tion and the coun­try.

Dr Row­ley and Stu­art Young joint­ly led the PNM to de­feat. This col­umn was writ­ten be­fore the de­bate on the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill in Par­lia­ment.

Prof Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.