DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

One year af­ter the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) called the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, the par­ty is re­flect­ing on a po­lit­i­cal turn­ing point that end­ed its decade in gov­ern­ment.

The March 17 an­nounce­ment set in mo­tion a cam­paign that cul­mi­nat­ed in the PNM’s de­feat at the April 28 polls and its re­turn to the op­po­si­tion bench­es.

For Stu­art Young, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West, the an­niver­sary prompt­ed re­flec­tion on his brief tenure as prime min­is­ter.

On Tues­day, he re­shared a Face­book mem­o­ry of his in­au­gur­al ad­dress to the na­tion, re­vis­it­ing what he de­scribed as a mo­ment of op­ti­mism.

“I had such hope for what we could achieve as Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

His pre­de­ces­sor, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, mean­while, ad­dressed the lead­er­ship tran­si­tion that pre­ced­ed the elec­tion.

Speak­ing to re­porters on Tues­day, Row­ley stood by his de­ci­sion to step down and fa­cil­i­tate a straw poll that led to Young’s se­lec­tion, while ac­knowl­edg­ing the risks in­volved.

“I am quite hap­py with the way that was han­dled, but it was a gam­ble. I ex­pect­ed a cer­tain kind of re­sponse. I didn’t get that re­sponse... But less well-ce­ment­ed build­ings have col­lapsed.”

Row­ley al­so said his de­ci­sion to re­main in of­fice be­yond his ini­tial plans was in­flu­enced by the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

“I thought that it would have been ir­re­spon­si­ble of me to leave the coun­try in a pan­dem­ic when I could have stayed on and done what I thought was best for the coun­try.”

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath ar­gued that the man­ner of the lead­er­ship tran­si­tion con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the par­ty’s elec­toral loss.

“What went wrong was sim­ply that Mr Young was ap­point­ed as act­ing prime min­is­ter by his po­lit­i­cal leader, who main­tained the po­si­tion as po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty. And that is the long and short of it all.

“Both the po­lit­i­cal leader and then prime min­is­ter Young did not grasp the grav­i­ty of the PNM mem­ber­ship and their views, and more or less felt that they were in a lead­er­ship po­si­tion, and like shep­herds, how they tell their sheep to go, the sheep will go.”

He sug­gest­ed that broad­er par­tic­i­pa­tion in the lead­er­ship se­lec­tion process could have al­tered the out­come, not­ing shifts in vot­er turnout be­tween the 2020 and 2025 elec­tions.

“The turnout be­tween 2020 and 2025 for the UNC was about 20,000 peo­ple more. That does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that those 20,000 peo­ple came from the PNM. Those were prob­a­bly un­de­cid­ed peo­ple in 2020 and de­cid­ed to sup­port the UNC in 2025. But the UNC did not gain PNM sup­port.”

Econ­o­mist and po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Vanus James of­fered a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive, ar­gu­ing that the elec­tion re­sult was shaped less by tim­ing or lead­er­ship changes and more by long-term pub­lic dis­sat­is­fac­tion.

He point­ed to what he de­scribed as a decade of eco­nom­ic de­cline, in­clud­ing an es­ti­mat­ed 27 per cent fall in re­al out­put and in­comes, along­side for­eign ex­change short­ages and ris­ing crime.

“There were all sorts of things that soured the mood of the pub­lic. And af­ter ten years of what peo­ple thought were er­rors and dis­plays of au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism and so on, on top of a sour econ­o­my, the PNM had very lit­tle chance of win­ning the elec­tions any­way, whether Row­ley was in pow­er or not. Stu­art Young nev­er re­al­ly had a chance. He was hand­ed a bad hand from the start.”

James al­so cit­ed un­ful­filled pol­i­cy com­mit­ments, in­clud­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, as fac­tors that may have erod­ed pub­lic trust. While he ac­knowl­edged in­ter­nal dis­sat­is­fac­tion with­in the PNM over the lead­er­ship tran­si­tion, he main­tained that the par­ty’s de­feat re­flect­ed broad­er struc­tur­al and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.

He fur­ther placed the out­come with­in a re­cur­ring pat­tern in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry, where gov­ern­ments of­ten lose sup­port af­ter ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods in of­fice, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing eco­nom­ic down­turns linked to fluc­tu­a­tions in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

Young did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion.