Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has hint­ed at pos­si­bly re­tir­ing from pol­i­tics soon.

He in­di­cat­ed this dur­ing his fea­ture ad­dress on Sat­ur­day night at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the new­ly-re­fur­bished Bal­isi­er House at Tran­quil­i­ty Street in Port-of-Spain.

Row­ley, who spoke about the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) on­ward and up­ward move­ment since its in­cep­tion 68 years ago, in­di­cat­ed that he may be lean­ing to­wards re­tire­ment.

Be­fore Row­ley’s speech, his col­leagues who spoke be­fore him men­tioned Row­ley’s long-stand­ing in­volve­ment in pol­i­tics and that they would like to see him lead the par­ty in next year’s gen­er­al elec­tions and as far as 2030, and 2035.

How­ev­er, in re­sponse, Row­ley said: “My wife re­tired at the end of last year and you could imag­ine how much pres­sure I am un­der to come home and meet my oth­er fam­i­ly.

“So when these fel­las get up here and talk­ing about next elec­tion and 2030 and 35 they’re not speak­ing for me eh. I spoke for my­self al­ready,” he added.

Weigh­ing in on the PNM po­lit­i­cal leader’s re­marks, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Shane Mo­hammed said that he thinks suc­ces­sion plan­ning is al­ready in mo­tion in the par­ty.

“It is al­ready in our face and we haven’t recog­nised it you know. In the struc­ture of the PNM it­self, the hi­er­ar­chy of the PNM ex­ec­u­tive there’s clear in­di­ca­tion of suc­ces­sion plan­ning and suc­ces­sion path­ways,” Mo­hammed said.

“The suc­ces­sor­ship plan­ning has al­ready been put in­to mo­tion in light of the Prime Min­is­ter’s ini­tial con­ver­sa­tion with the na­tion about him re­tir­ing from pol­i­tics. He al­so said that this would be his last term as prime min­is­ter. He’s in­di­cat­ed sev­er­al things and if you look close­ly in­to the PNM he has made move­ments that in­di­cates that there are var­i­ous suc­ces­sion path­ways that can be ex­plored de­pend­ing on his ap­proval or bless­ing,” he added.

For­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the PNM Ash­ton Ford when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day said that based on his knowl­edge the par­ty al­lows its con­sti­tu­tion to take its course.

“In terms of suc­ces­sion, the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion comes in­to play and that de­ter­mines the leader. Any­time it comes down to re­place­ment the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion comes in­to play and un­til the con­sti­tu­tion has been changed when I was gen­er­al sec­re­tary its a one man one vote,” Ford said.

PNM Stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira, al­so said the par­ty will have to de­cide if the nom­i­na­tion will have to come from the par­ty mem­bers.

“They will have to nom­i­nate or he would be the on­ly one that would be re­tir­ing.

“It was sort of a twin mes­sage that said don’t de­pend on me but it was not an out right an­nounce­ment that he is leav­ing. No such thing was made. He’s telling you, well cir­cum­stances that his wife re­tir­ing and so on, in oth­er words ‘alyuh don’t de­pend on me’ but he did not come out­right and say that at the end of his term and he’s gone,” Fer­reira added.

Fer­reira added that if, in fact, Row­ley de­cid­ed to go, “he would have said that and put the ma­chin­ery in process for se­lect­ing some­body to lead the par­ty in the next elec­tion but no such thing came out.”

Mean­while, UNC sen­a­tor Wade Mark said Row­ley should make an ex­it from pol­i­tics.

“We say good rid­dance. He has es­tab­lished a lega­cy of shame and his lega­cy is one of blood shed and he is think­ing of re­tir­ing? Lis­ten we are telling him to leave now and it is ru­moured he wants to call a snap sec­tion. We say bring it on,” Mark said.