Now that the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny for a new prime min­is­ter has been set for to­mor­row at 10 am, to­day is the last day for Dr Kei­th Row­ley to serve as Prime Min­is­ter. Up to this point, he ap­pears no longer will­ing to ac­cept the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter as de­tailed in sec­tion 76(1) of our Con­sti­tu­tion as the sec­ond con­di­tion for hold­ing that of­fice.

His con­tin­u­a­tion in of­fice as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM has caused some de­bate and dis­cus­sion over whether there is a clear path­way for his cho­sen suc­ces­sor, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young. There are two schools of thought that have emerged.

One view is that Row­ley is the “mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who is the Leader in that House of the par­ty that com­mands the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of the mem­bers of that House” by virtue of be­ing the par­ty leader of the PNM.

The al­ter­na­tive view is that the de­ci­sion by the PNM par­lia­men­tary cau­cus (which con­sists of 21 out of 41 MPs) to unan­i­mous­ly in­di­cate that they sup­port Stu­art Young to be­come the Prime Min­is­ter would make Young the “mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who is the Leader in that House of the par­ty that com­mands the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of the mem­bers of that House.” This view may open the door to a fu­ture route to re­move a PM from of­fice not spelt out in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

This de­bate has gone on for over six weeks and will ob­vi­ous­ly come to an end to­mor­row at the Pres­i­dent’s House cer­e­mo­ny that is card­ed for 10 am.

What is not clear is whether Row­ley will an­nounce his res­ig­na­tion as par­ty leader to the con­ven­tion to­day and have that con­ven­tion choose an in­ter­im leader by ac­cla­ma­tion or con­tin­ue to force the point that he is stay­ing on as par­ty leader along­side Stu­art Young as Prime Min­is­ter.

The PNM is pre­sent­ing all 41 of its can­di­dates at Wood­ford Square across the road from City Hall, where the spe­cial con­ven­tion is be­ing held. There has been no an­nounce­ment of a dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment (up to the time of writ­ing), and so the pre­sen­ta­tion of these can­di­dates is be­ing done in the shad­ow of an im­pend­ing gen­er­al elec­tion whose date has not yet been an­nounced.

Of course, if a dis­so­lu­tion is an­nounced by Row­ley while he is still PM, then Stu­art Young can be ap­point­ed as Prime Min­is­ter un­der sec­tion 76(4) of the Con­sti­tu­tion with­out all of the re­quire­ments im­posed by sec­tion 76(1)(a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which have been the sub­ject of in­tense de­bate since last month.

The Pres­i­dent ex­er­cis­es the pow­er to ap­point a PM in ac­cor­dance with sec­tion 80(3)(a) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which states:

“(3) With­out prej­u­dice to any oth­er case in which the Pres­i­dent is au­tho­rised or re­quired to act in his dis­cre­tion, the Pres­i­dent shall act in ac­cor­dance with his own de­lib­er­ate judg­ment in the per­for­mance of the fol­low­ing func­tions:

(a) in the ex­er­cise of the pow­er to ap­point the Prime Min­is­ter con­ferred up­on him by sec­tion 76(1) or (4);”

It will be up to the Pres­i­dent to ex­er­cise her own “de­lib­er­ate judge­ment” to make the ap­point­ment un­der sec­tion 76(1) or which per­son she may choose to ap­point un­der sec­tion 76(4). In the lat­ter case, she is un­der no oblig­a­tion to go along with any par­tic­u­lar pre-arranged choice be­cause that sub­sec­tion on­ly ap­plies dur­ing a dis­so­lu­tion and all MPs would have al­ready va­cat­ed their seats.

We have nev­er had a par­ty suc­ces­sion plan im­ple­ment­ed in an elec­tion year where the PM demit­ting of­fice is alive and the per­son com­ing in­to of­fice as PM will stand side by side with the par­ty leader as an­oth­er par­ty leader.

The pass­ing of Dr Er­ic Williams in 1981 led to the ex­er­cise of Pres­i­dent El­lis Clarke’s “own de­lib­er­ate judge­ment” to choose George Cham­bers over Ka­malud­din Mo­hammed and Er­rol Ma­habir. The de­feat of the PNM in 1986, to­geth­er with PM Cham­bers los­ing his seat, led to the ap­point­ment of ANR Robin­son as PM.

The 17-17-2 hung Par­lia­ment of 1995 and the re­fusal of Patrick Man­ning to en­ter­tain any idea of a coali­tion gov­ern­ment led to the ap­point­ment of Bas­deo Pan­day as PM. The 18-18 hung Par­lia­ment of 2001 led to Pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son ex­er­cis­ing “his own de­lib­er­ate judge­ment” to re­voke Pan­day’s ap­point­ment as PM and to ap­point Patrick Man­ning as PM.

These were all oc­ca­sions where the ex­er­cise of the “de­lib­er­ate judge­ment” of the Pres­i­dent com­plet­ed the ap­point­ment of a PM in dif­fer­ing cir­cum­stances.

So to­mor­row we shall see which set of cir­cum­stances will ap­ply to the Pres­i­dent ex­er­cis­ing her “own de­lib­er­ate judge­ment” as we face the fi­nal count­down to the de­par­ture of Dr Kei­th Row­ley as PM.

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.