With the PNM do­ing on June 2 what it might have done on Jan­u­ary 6, the chal­lenge now fac­ing the par­ty is how to in­ter­nal­ly rec­on­cile the mis­take that they made in em­bark­ing up­on a strat­e­gy that was doomed to fail.

Hav­ing a po­lit­i­cal leader who was not the prime min­is­ter was the brain­child of Dr Kei­th Row­ley and was im­ple­ment­ed be­tween Oc­to­ber 2024 and March 2025.

The premise of tak­ing this chance was based on their er­ror of judge­ment in be­liev­ing that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was un­e­lec­table. This be­lief was based on the un­truths they pro­mot­ed among them­selves as well as what the for­mer UNC op­er­a­tives who were run­ning to them were say­ing be­cause they had nowhere to go in the UNC and want­ed to ad­vance their am­bi­tions un­der a PNM tent.

The bait was tak­en, and the PNM strate­gised it­self out of of­fice with a faulty plan ful­ly fund­ed by their elite donors, de­spite promi­nent voic­es in the PNM, who were op­posed to it, be­ing shut down when they tried to speak.

It is ap­par­ent that Dr Row­ley is find­ing it dif­fi­cult to en­joy his self-im­posed re­tire­ment as he keeps his Face­book page ac­tive with po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary against his for­mer col­leagues in the PNM and against the new Prime Min­is­ter.

With barbs go­ing back and forth, a new lev­el of in­dis­ci­pline is be­ing wit­nessed on so­cial me­dia. On May 6, Dr Amery Browne post­ed on Face­book, along­side a pic­ture of him­self stand­ing next to the new Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Pene­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, the fol­low­ing:

“*They tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake au­then­tic­i­ty*. Con­grat­u­la­tions to our na­tion’s Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, the Ho­n­ourable Pene­lope Beck­les-Robin­son. ‘Great is Trinidad and To­ba­go.’”

The re­sponse from Row­ley was swift and bru­tal:

“Et tu, Bru­tus! Thank you, Amery, for the ac­cu­sa­tion that I and those who fol­lowed my idea, at­tempt­ed to rig an elec­tion. You, more than any­one else should know the depth of my au­then­tic­i­ty, com­mit­ment and car­ing. Rest as­sured that what­ev­er strat­e­gy I ad­vanced and pur­sued had noth­ing to do with rig­ging (un­less you can show me where I broke or sup­pressed any clause in any Con­sti­tu­tion, par­ty or na­tion­al). I take com­fort in know­ing to my­self that every mo­ti­va­tion that came from me had as its on­ly ob­jec­tive, the best in­ter­est of the coun­try and the par­ty in that or­der.”

The ref­er­ence to “Bru­tus” re­called William Shake­speare’s play “Julius Cae­sar”, when Bru­tus and his col­leagues be­trayed Julius Cae­sar on the Ides of March, which is March 15.

Browne took down the post af­ter the vi­cious re­sponse from Row­ley. It was ob­vi­ous that the wounds in the af­ter­math of the spat re­vealed a deep hurt and di­vi­sion with­in the PNM over the tran­si­tion of the pre­mier­ship from Row­ley to Young.

Browne al­so had an­oth­er beef over the set­up that saw him pro­pose his name and then with­draw it mys­te­ri­ous­ly to be the PNM can­di­date to re­place Row­ley as the MP for Diego Mar­tin West.

The de­ci­sion by Row­ley to step down as PM and stay on as po­lit­i­cal leader was de­scribed as “an ex­per­i­ment” by Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi. It was not pub­licly por­trayed as such by all of the PNM MPs who signed a let­ter (in­clud­ing Al-Rawi and Beck­les-Robin­son) and sent it to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo pledg­ing their al­le­giance and sup­port for Stu­art Young to be­come the Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try, while Dr Row­ley re­mained as their po­lit­i­cal leader in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

How­ev­er, PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, one of the MPs who signed the let­ter, said in his own post:

“I was nev­er con­sult­ed, and I cer­tain­ly did not en­dorse the strat­e­gy pur­sued by those who led us from gov­ern­ment in­to op­po­si­tion while ad­vanc­ing their own agen­da.”

So is it that Cum­mings was not con­sult­ed about the Stu­art Young pre­mier­ship and all that that en­tailed, but he still signed the let­ter? Or is he talk­ing about some­thing else that seems more sin­is­ter, see­ing that he is the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the PNM?

The PNM has re­turned to op­po­si­tion for a fourth time be­cause all of their MPs in the last Par­lia­ment gam­bled on this “ex­per­i­ment” and they col­lec­tive­ly put their par­ty in­to op­po­si­tion. The strat­e­gy was de­bat­ed open­ly in the me­dia for weeks be­fore it was im­ple­ment­ed by Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo.

As soon as the strat­e­gy was im­ple­ment­ed on March 17, the new PM, Stu­art Young, dis­solved Par­lia­ment on March 18. Was this de­ci­sion al­so part of “the ex­per­i­ment” or was this part of a sep­a­rate strat­e­gy on the side?

Their elite-fund­ed ex­per­i­ment failed, and the UNC is now the Gov­ern­ment much to the shock and awe of those elite donors.

Prof Hamid Ghany is a 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.