In a mo­ment that sur­prised many fa­mil­iar with their his­to­ry, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine praised each oth­er on Sat­ur­day when they took part in a pan­el dis­cus­sion at Bish­op’s High School in To­ba­go.

The ex­change came dur­ing a light-heart­ed but thought­ful seg­ment of the event when mod­er­a­tor Ira Math­ur asked both men to share some­thing they ad­mired about each oth­er. De­spite their po­lit­i­cal­ly strained past, both took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak with re­spect and re­flec­tion.

Row­ley said he ad­mired Au­gus­tine’s en­er­gy and pas­sion for To­ba­go.

“I would say that what I ad­mire about Far­ley is his en­thu­si­asm,” Row­ley said. “The en­thu­si­asm that he shows, giv­en the chal­lenges ahead and the hur­dles to over­come… that en­thu­si­asm, if chan­nelled in the right way, tem­pered with some re­al­i­ty, could bear fruit for the na­tion.”

“He rep­re­sents among the best that To­ba­go has to of­fer,” Row­ley said. “Our young peo­ple are re­quired to be en­thu­si­as­tic about this coun­try and Far­ley demon­strates that.”

The two have had a tense re­la­tion­ship, with fre­quent pub­lic clash­es over To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my, air and seabridge mat­ters, de­vel­op­ment fund­ing, and the han­dling of the 2023 oil spill on the is­land.

Au­gus­tine, re­spond­ing with a smile, said he ad­mired Row­ley’s abil­i­ty to stand firm even when mak­ing hard de­ci­sions.

“You are now re­tired from the po­si­tion of prime min­is­ter­ship. I don’t know if you’re re­tired from pol­i­tics,” Au­gus­tine said. “Cer­tain­ly, I ad­mire your abil­i­ty to take de­ci­sions, even de­ci­sions that are ex­treme­ly un­pop­u­lar with most of the coun­try.

“Your po­lit­i­cal savvi­ness, your abil­i­ty to be strate­gic, al­lowed you to sur­vive 45 years in this blood sport of pol­i­tics,” he said.

He added: “Third­ly, your abil­i­ty to take very un­pop­u­lar de­ci­sions once you are con­vinced it’s the right de­ci­sion to take—I ad­mire that.”

Sat­ur­day night’s ex­change was a rare shift in tone be­tween two of To­ba­go’s most promi­nent po­lit­i­cal fig­ures.

Ear­li­er this year, Au­gus­tine had crit­i­cised Row­ley’s ad­min­is­tra­tion for not treat­ing To­ba­go fair­ly. In re­turn, Row­ley ac­cused Au­gus­tine of mis­man­ag­ing the is­land’s af­fairs and pri­ori­tis­ing op­tics over gov­er­nance.

How­ev­er, on Sat­ur­day, both men ap­peared to put those dis­putes aside in favour of men­tor­ship and lead­er­ship re­flec­tion.

Row­ley of­fered guid­ance to the To­ba­go leader, say­ing, “Far­ley demon­strates his en­thu­si­asm for To­ba­go, but once that is tem­pered with the fact that all that glit­ters is not gold, oth­er­wise you can be tremen­dous­ly dis­ap­point­ed. I trust that for his fu­ture.

“I gen­uine­ly be­lieve that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple in this coun­try are de­cent, right-think­ing peo­ple and that you can talk to them re­spect­ful­ly, sen­si­bly, and get a good out­come.”

Au­gus­tine nod­ded through­out Row­ley’s re­marks, say­ing ear­li­er in the dis­cus­sion: “Hope­ful­ly there will be an­oth­er To­bag­on­ian as pres­i­dent some­time in the fu­ture. I wouldn’t proph­esy be­cause I think I have goat mouth now.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Shane Mo­hammed, re­flect­ing on the in­ter­ac­tion, said Au­gus­tine’s re­marks ap­peared gen­uine and thought­ful, while Row­ley’s choice of the word “en­thu­si­asm” left room for in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

He felt the for­mer prime min­is­ter missed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be more ex­pres­sive, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the his­tor­i­cal ten­sion be­tween the two.

Mo­hammed said while Au­gus­tine open­ly spoke of Row­ley’s fear­less­ness and strate­gic mind­set, Row­ley’s re­sponse felt cau­tious—miss­ing the kind of warmth or men­tor­ship that could have sig­nalled the clos­ing of that po­lit­i­cal chap­ter and feud.

He said it would have meant more to hear Row­ley speak of his pride in Au­gus­tine’s jour­ney and pass the ba­ton as a fel­low To­bag­on­ian leader.

“I feel he could have used words like pride and proud and a sense of ac­com­plish­ment as a fel­low To­bag­on­ian to see the ba­ton passed from my gen­er­a­tion to yours,” Mo­hammed said.