As T&T en­ters deep in­to the 2025 elec­tion cam­paign, it must con­front a new di­men­sion to its po­lit­i­cal cul­ture. The tra­di­tion­al for­mat that was agreed up­on at Marl­bor­ough House in 1962 and re­in­forced lo­cal­ly when we be­came a re­pub­lic in 1976 has been broad­ened to ac­com­mo­date a new di­men­sion of be­ing able to ap­point a prime min­is­ter who is not par­ty leader while the par­ty leader sits among the par­ty MPs in the ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (HOR).

That change was con­firmed on March 17 in­stant with the ap­point­ment of Stu­art Young as Prime Min­is­ter un­der sec­tion 76(1)(a) of our Con­sti­tu­tion when the Pres­i­dent de­ter­mined that Young was “the leader in the House” of the ma­jor­i­ty of MPs of the PNM, “notwith­stand­ing” the pres­ence of Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the for­mer prime min­is­ter, who was al­so among those MPs and re­mained the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.

Hav­ing ac­cept­ed the ad­vice of Se­nior Coun­sel that the PNM could have two lead­ers in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, name­ly its po­lit­i­cal leader as well as the “leader in the House” of its MPs, she de­ter­mined that the PNM did not have any is­sue with “an undis­put­ed leader.”

As far as the Pres­i­dent was con­cerned, her in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion was that Young was ap­pointable un­der sec­tion 76(1)(a), de­spite the avail­abil­i­ty of sec­tion 76(1)(b) which caters to sit­u­a­tions where par­ties do not have any “undis­put­ed leader.”

By her in­ter­pre­ta­tion, the PNM had an “undis­put­ed leader” de­spite the pres­ence of both Row­ley and Young in the HOR.

In our sys­tem, the par­ty leader is the au­to­mat­ic choice to be ap­point­ed Prime Min­is­ter once the par­ty that he/she leads wins a ma­jor­i­ty of seats in the HOR. That was the ba­sis up­on which Dr Row­ley was ap­point­ed PM in 2015 and re-ap­point­ed PM in 2020.

In March 2025, Dr Row­ley opt­ed to re­sign as PM but re­main as par­ty leader of the PNM. Af­ter the dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment on the day af­ter he was ap­point­ed PM, Young was put in­to a sit­u­a­tion where­by he be­came a PNM can­di­date just like the oth­er 40 PNM can­di­dates, while Dr Row­ley re­mained the par­ty leader who was not go­ing to con­test a seat.

This has cre­at­ed a new po­lit­i­cal cul­ture in our par­lia­men­tary sys­tem where­by the par­ty leader of the PNM will not be con­test­ing a seat, and the par­ty will not have an au­to­mat­ic leader should a ma­jor­i­ty of PNM can­di­dates win their seats in the gen­er­al elec­tion.

The Pres­i­dent re­lied up­on a let­ter from a ma­jor­i­ty of PNM MPs to make the ap­point­ment of Young as PM on March 17 in­stant. She will not be able to ap­point the par­ty leader of the PNM au­to­mat­i­cal­ly un­der sec­tion 76(1)(a) should the par­ty’s can­di­dates be suc­cess­ful in win­ning a ma­jor­i­ty of seats. There is no par­ty leader among them, so whom would she ap­point as PM?

This mod­el of ap­point­ment for our PM on the ba­sis of be­ing the leader of the par­ty with a ma­jor­i­ty of seats was copied on­ly in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Be­lize and The Ba­hamas af­ter we in­tro­duced it in 1962 at our in­de­pen­dence.

Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St Kitts-Nevis, St Lu­cia, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines copied the 1962 Ja­maican mod­el of recog­nis­ing the MP who could com­mand the sup­port of a ma­jor­i­ty of MPs as the per­son to be ap­point­ed PM.

By mak­ing the par­ty the para­mount in­sti­tu­tion to be con­sid­ered as the ve­hi­cle through which the PM will be ap­point­ed, the T&T mod­el was on­ly copied by three oth­er Com­mon­wealth Caribbean coun­tries. The qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence is that a pa­per check of the loy­al­ty of MPs by the Head of State is not re­quired when mak­ing an ap­point­ment to the of­fice of PM af­ter a gen­er­al elec­tion, be­cause be­ing the par­ty leader is all that is re­quired.

For this gen­er­al elec­tion, the Pres­i­dent will be forced to make an ap­point­ment un­der sec­tion 76(1)(b) if a ma­jor­i­ty of PNM can­di­dates are elect­ed be­cause their par­ty leader, Dr Row­ley, will not be an MP.

The po­lit­i­cal cul­ture change that has to be con­sid­ered is whether, in the fu­ture, a change of PM can now be ef­fect­ed by a let­ter from a ma­jor­i­ty of MPs of a par­ty seek­ing to re­place a PM “notwith­stand­ing” the pres­ence of the par­ty leader on the bench­es of the ma­jor­i­ty par­ty. Can a PM now be re­moved by let­ter with­out a for­mal mo­tion of no con­fi­dence?

That is a clear and present dan­ger to all par­ties in our par­lia­men­tary sys­tem as a con­se­quence of the de­ci­sion by Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo to ap­point Young as PM un­der sec­tion 76(1)(a) and not sec­tion 76(1)(b).

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. He can be reached at hamid.ghany@sta.uwi.edu