Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The door­way for a new Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­date for Na­pari­ma was open yes­ter­day, af­ter in­cum­bent MP Rod­ney Charles said he won’t seek to con­test the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions as he’ll be out of ac­tive pol­i­tics then.

“I’ll be 76 in 2025. The time has come for my gen­er­a­tion to make way for younger politi­cians to as­sume the reins of lead­er­ship,” Charles added yes­ter­day.

“As the old­est sit­ting MP in the Low­er House, I call on (PNM leader) Dr Kei­th Row­ley, as the sec­ond old­est, to join me in ush­er­ing in a new era of pol­i­tics. We must dis­card the no­tion that one has to leave T&T pol­i­tics ei­ther in ig­nominy or in a cas­ket.”

Charles con­firmed the sit­u­a­tion via press state­ment.

His news fol­lowed UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s con­fir­ma­tion on Mon­day that gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­na­tion forms will be avail­able from Mon­day.

Yes­ter­day, Charles said, “I will not be sub­mit­ting nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to con­test the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. As such, my ac­tive po­lit­i­cal ca­reer will end in 2025.”

Charles, who was the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment’s per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, has been Na­pari­ma MP since 2015. The pre­vi­ous MP was Nizam Baksh. Charles was again se­lect­ed to con­test the tra­di­tion­al UNC “safe seat” for 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions and won.

A UNC front bench MP, Charles is par­ty spokesman on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and for­eign af­fairs. He’s among UNC MPs who of­ten brace Row­ley and Gov­ern­ment front lin­ers on is­sues.

Charles said he’d ad­vised con­stituents in var­i­ous meet­ings that this was his last term as MP. He said he’d re­main a life­time UNC mem­ber and af­ter 2025, will con­tin­ue as­sist­ing the par­ty if called up­on.

He said he’d tried through­out his ca­reer to serve T&T to the best of his abil­i­ty. He cit­ed his 2002 es­tab­lish­ment of COSTAATT School of Jour­nal­ism and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Stud­ies, his ca­reer as NP’s re­tail mar­ket­ing man­ag­er, in­clud­ing spear­head­ing up­grade of the “di­lap­i­dat­ed” net­work of 212 ser­vice sta­tions, and as T&T’s UN am­bas­sador.

“In Par­lia­ment, I en­deav­oured to hold Dr Row­ley’s ad­min­is­tra­tion to ac­count on a range of mat­ters. For this, I have to thank Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as par­ty leader for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve for two terms as Na­pari­ma MP.”

Kam­la: I’ll miss him

Com­ment­ing on Charles’ de­ci­sion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the T&T Guardian, “MP Charles is a good and de­cent man who we’ll miss dear­ly when he de­parts the Par­lia­ment in 2025. I will miss our con­ver­sa­tions in Par­lia­ment, es­pe­cial­ly as he sits next to me on the Op­po­si­tion bench, a po­si­tion which shows the love and re­spect I have for him.

“I ap­point­ed him as am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed Na­tions from 2010 to 2014. I then gave him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve as a UNC MP. He’s al­ways pro­vid­ed good ad­vice and sup­port. Rod­ney Charles will al­ways be loved by me no mat­ter where our paths in life take us. The UNC and my­self say a big thank you to Rod­ney.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing his de­par­ture, UNC deputy leader Jear­lean John said Charles was, “an ex­cel­lent and very ca­pa­ble pro­fes­sion­al who’s served his coun­try very well. He’s had an ex­tra­or­di­nary ca­reer with a proven track record of achieve­ments.”

PNM chair­man Stu­art Young didn’t re­spond on Charles’ de­ci­sion to opt out. But oth­er PNM ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials had one word: “Yaaay!!!”

Mean­while, for­mer UNC San Juan-Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan said he won’t seek the Na­pari­ma seat held by Charles.

How­ev­er, he felt the elec­tion was too far away to start the process now.

“Fil­ing nom­i­na­tions now will cause burnout be­fore the elec­tions. Kam­la should on­ly do nom­i­na­tions for ten mar­gin­als and send every­one to work in these mar­gin­als for the next 19 months and for­get PNM and UNC safe seat nom­i­na­tions,” he said.

Khan, who said he had been ap­proached by many, in­clud­ing for­mer con­stituents, to file for a seat, added, “The seat for which I would file has a sit­ting MP. If he will not run or he files for else­where, on­ly then will I file for San Juan-Barataria.”