Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has named Stu­art Young as his suc­ces­sor—tout­ing Young’s lead­er­ship abil­i­ties and readi­ness to steer the na­tion— fol­low­ing a vote in which Young was cho­sen over Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son.

Speak­ing dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence af­ter a two-day Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) cau­cus at the To­ba­go Plan­ta­tions, Dr Row­ley of­fered a glow­ing en­dorse­ment of Young’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence, say­ing it po­si­tioned him as the nat­ur­al choice to take over the lead­er­ship of the par­ty and Gov­ern­ment.

“Min­is­ter Young came out with the ma­jor­i­ty of sup­port,” Row­ley told the me­dia.

He added, “He (Young) has been in Gov­ern­ment now for al­most ten years, op­er­at­ing out of the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, where he would have seen the Gov­ern­ment close up and par­tic­i­pat­ed in it. I have seen him at work on many very de­tailed and tech­ni­cal as­sign­ments, and he has not on­ly done the job but has dis­tin­guished him­self.”

Young, who has served in sev­er­al high-pro­file roles, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, has been a lead­ing play­er in the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Row­ley shared his con­fi­dence in Young’s abil­i­ty to lead Trinidad and To­ba­go through the chal­lenges ahead, ref­er­enc­ing his track record of han­dling sen­si­tive and com­plex is­sues, in­clud­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, en­er­gy, and for­eign af­fairs.

Young’s tenure, he said, has proven his ca­pac­i­ty to man­age the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of lead­er­ship ef­fec­tive­ly.

“I have no doubt that Min­is­ter Young’s ex­pe­ri­ence, his ded­i­ca­tion, and his com­mit­ment to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, will en­sure that dur­ing the pe­ri­od he has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for be­ing prime min­is­ter, he will con­tin­ue to put the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests first.”

The an­nounce­ment fol­lowed days of spec­u­la­tion about who would suc­ceed Row­ley, who has served as PNM leader and Prime Min­is­ter since 2015 but called an end to his 45-year po­lit­i­cal ca­reer last Fri­day.

Dr Row­ley took time to dis­miss ru­mours of dis­cord with­in the cau­cus, and not­ed that Young had emerged as the pre­ferred can­di­date through an in­ter­nal process.

“The en­tire PNM cau­cus is in sup­port of Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Stu­art Young,” Dr Row­ley re­vealed.

“We are very pleased to an­nounce that the promise of a smooth tran­si­tion is go­ing ac­cord­ing to plan.”

Row­ley did not an­swer a di­rect ques­tion on how close the vote was, but said, “At the end of the day, we had a straw poll among the cau­cus, and Min­is­ter Young came out with the ma­jor­i­ty. ... It doesn’t in­volve a three-quar­ters ma­jor­i­ty or a half of ma­jor­i­ty.”

How­ev­er, par­ty sources told Guardian Me­dia the vote was 11-9 in favour of Young

It was al­so made clear that while Young will take over as Prime Min­is­ter, the PNM po­lit­i­cal leader po­si­tion will be fi­nalised at a con­ven­tion card­ed for Sep­tem­ber.

On the is­sue of his even­tu­al de­par­ture, Row­ley con­firmed that while he had not set a pre­cise date for this, he planned to step down “ear­li­er rather than lat­er.”

He made it clear the se­lec­tion of Young would be in line with con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions, with the Pres­i­dent ap­point­ing the new prime min­is­ter based on who com­mands the ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Be­fore step­ping down, Row­ley said he will com­plete a few com­mit­ments as his fi­nal tasks.

One of his key re­spon­si­bil­i­ties will be at­tend­ing the Cari­com meet­ing in Bar­ba­dos on Feb­ru­ary 19. He al­so said he was fi­nal­is­ing cer­tain mat­ters, in­clud­ing those re­lat­ed to se­cu­ri­ty and re­gion­al crick­et, be­fore of­fi­cial­ly step­ping down. He said he would not leave un­fin­ished busi­ness for some­one else to han­dle to en­sure the tran­si­tion process would be as seam­less as pos­si­ble.

He said af­ter the Cari­com meet­ing, he will an­nounce the ex­act date of his de­par­ture, with the tran­si­tion ex­pect­ed to oc­cur around the time of Car­ni­val.

Young thanks col­leagues for sup­port

Young was not present dur­ing the PM’s me­dia con­fer­ence but in a so­cial me­dia post hours lat­er, Young said, “I would like to sin­cere­ly thank my par­lia­men­tary col­leagues for the con­fi­dence they have ex­pressed in me.”

He al­so laud­ed Row­ley.

“I al­so thank Dr the Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley, Prime Min­is­ter of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, for his con­tin­ued and ex­em­plary lead­er­ship in guid­ing us through a his­toric process,” Young said.

“I am proud to be a mem­ber of the PNM and look for­ward to work­ing tire­less­ly not on­ly with all of our mem­bers but al­so with all cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go as we con­tin­ue work­ing to­wards the build­ing of our coun­try and en­sur­ing its fu­ture suc­cess.”

PM Row­ley’s tran­si­tion time­line

Jan­u­ary 3, 2025 - Dr Row­ley an­nounced plans to of­fi­cial­ly demit of­fice as Prime Min­is­ter and MP for Diego Mar­tin West.

Jan­u­ary 4, 2025 - Dr Row­ley re­vealed he is not stay­ing on as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader un­til 2026.

Jan­u­ary 6, 2025 - Dr Row­ley re­veals Stu­art Young has been cho­sen by the PNM Par­lia­men­tary cau­cus to re­place him as Prime Min­is­ter.

Feb­ru­ary 19, 2025 - Dr Row­ley to at­tend the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in Bar­ba­dos.

Feb­ru­ary 21, 2025 - Dr Row­ley re­turns to T&T to “wrap up things.”

March - Dr Row­ley to demit of­fice as Prime Min­is­ter

Sep­tem­ber 28, 2025 - PNM con­ven­tion to be held to choose a new po­lit­i­cal leader