Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to join him in re­tire­ment.

In De­cem­ber last year, Charles said he would be rid­ing in­to the po­lit­i­cal sun­set as he said he would not be seek­ing re-elec­tion.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day, Charles said that if both Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal lead­ers stepped down it would help ush­er in a new gen­er­a­tion of pol­i­tics.

“I call on Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley, I call on my es­teemed po­lit­i­cal leader, Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, to join me in step­ping down and ush­er­ing in a trans­for­ma­tive mo­ment in our large­ly pedes­tri­an, un­der­per­form­ing, out­mod­ed and an­te­dilu­vian pol­i­tics of sur­vival,” Charles said.

While he did not sug­gest who could re­place the lead­ers who have been at the helm of their par­ties for al­most 14 years, he said the mem­ber­ships will de­cide. Charles said there were many ca­pa­ble young pro­fes­sion­als, but they wee not in po­lit­i­cal par­ties as the cur­rent na­ture of pol­i­tics dis­cour­aged them.

Charles not­ed that for­mer prime min­is­ters Patrick Man­ning, Dr Er­ic Williams and George Cham­bers died at 69. While for­mer prime min­is­ters ANR Robin­son and Bas­deo Pan­day lived be­yond their bib­li­cal­ly al­lo­cat­ed lifes­pan of three score and 10, he said they did so out of prime min­is­te­r­i­al of­fice.

Charles said lead­ers un­der 50 were trend­ing both re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Fur­ther­more, he said, if Row­ley won the elec­tion in 2025, he would serve un­til he was in his 80s.

“We must dis­card once and for all the no­tion that one has to leave T&T pol­i­tics ei­ther in ig­nominy or in a cas­ket. That has all the foot­prints of a sep­tu­a­ge­nar­i­an log­ic and be­hav­iour,” he said.

Charles said the UNC’s pri­or­i­ty was to oust the PNM, but it could not strength­en the par­ty be­hind closed doors. He said trans­paren­cy would build trust and show vot­ers that the UNC op­er­at­ed with the same prin­ci­ples it in­tend­ed to gov­ern. There­fore, he said, call­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions when con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due was nec­es­sary for shap­ing the par­ty in­to the best ver­sion of it­self.

He said the UNC must rein­vent it­self to re­main a re­silient force against the PNM, with new poli­cies, na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, and trans­fer of lead­er­ship in pur­suit of the coun­try’s in­ter­est.

“Our in­ter­nal elec­tions must be the gold stan­dard re­flect­ing the high­est lev­els of trans­paren­cy, fair­ness, in­tegri­ty, and world-class sys­tems and process­es. They must nev­er favour one side with doc­tored lists, vot­er sup­pres­sion tech­niques and ques­tion­able prac­tices. They must be con­duct­ed in a man­ner from which even the EBC could learn lessons,” he added.

UNC MPs Rush­ton Paray, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne have called for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to an­nounce the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive (NA­TEX) elec­tions fol­low­ing a plan to post­pone the in­ter­nal polls with the par­ty prepar­ing to con­test the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions. Al­though NA­TEX elec­tions do not change the lead­er­ship, Charles said the ex­ec­u­tive is the crit­i­cal body that sets the par­ty’s di­rec­tion.

Re­spond­ing to UNC mem­bers who be­lieve they should sit on the back bench­es of Par­lia­ment, Charles said, “It mat­ters not where we sit in Par­lia­ment. What is of con­se­quence is where we stand on the en­dur­ing prin­ci­ples of truth, ho­n­our and dig­ni­ty.”

As for Paray, Ram­bal­ly and Haynes-Al­leyne, Charles said, “Que sera, sera.” He be­lieves they are fu­ture lead­ers.

As for Charles out­side the Par­lia­ment, he plans to vis­it his grand­chil­dren in Japan and re­mains avail­able to help the UNC. Charles said at his age, he had no time to waste and had a lot of sins to make up for.

Among those at­tend­ing the me­dia con­fer­ence were for­mer chair­man of the Cou­va/ Tabaquite/ Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Hen­ry Awong, Mon De­sir Coun­cil­lor Deryck Bowrin and UNC Na­pari­ma Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.