The pos­si­bil­i­ty of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley not con­test­ing his Diego Mar­tin West seat again sent shock­waves through the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) yes­ter­day, but not about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Dr Amery Browne con­test­ing the Diego Mar­tin West seat in­stead. Sources ex­pressed con­cern that the Prime Min­is­ter would have left many of them blind­sided, as they thought he was go­ing to lead them in­to an­oth­er elec­tion.

Par­ty sources said there was spec­u­la­tion and ac­cu­sa­tions for most of Sun­day, when the Sun­day Guardian broke the sto­ry, on who the source of the in­for­ma­tion was un­til Browne com­ment­ed on it, say­ing he had “not been ap­proached by the con­stituen­cy of DM West re­gard­ing nom­i­na­tion as an elec­toral can­di­date.”

The Sun­day Guardian sto­ry, how­ev­er, nev­er said he was ap­proached by the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands many with­in the par­ty saw Browne as a fit­ting re­place­ment for Diego Mar­tin West. Com­ments on so­cial me­dia un­der the sto­ry were pos­i­tive over­all as well.

If not Diego Mar­tin West, some won­dered if it would be bet­ter for Browne to re­turn to his pre­vi­ous seat of Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, which he held from 2007-2015. But that seat is cur­rent­ly held by Symon De No­bri­ga, who has sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to con­test again.

As he en­tered the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley did not re­spond to ques­tions about the sto­ry, and in par­tic­u­lar if he would con­test his seat again.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to Min­is­ter Browne and asked what the re­ac­tion had been like to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of him tak­ing over the seat and if he had spo­ken to the Prime Min­is­ter on the is­sue since.

Browne sim­ply said, “No com­ment from me on this top­ic at this time.”

The PNM finds it­self in an in­ter­est­ing po­si­tion.

In the past, the par­ty has had to find a new leader by way of un­time­ly death, as in the case of Dr Er­ic Williams in 1981, or through a res­ig­na­tion af­ter sweep­ing elec­toral de­feats as in 1986 and in 2010, when George Cham­bers and Patrick Man­ning lost to the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) and Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship (PP) re­spec­tive­ly. This would be the first time a sit­ting prime min­is­ter could vol­un­tar­i­ly opt out of con­test­ing an elec­tion.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts say there are sev­er­al pos­si­ble sce­nar­ios for the Prime Min­is­ter go­ing for­ward. Row­ley could pos­si­bly step down en­tire­ly and walk away from elec­toral pol­i­tics. He could al­so step down, Browne could run for the seat and Row­ley could still re­tain the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader un­til the next in­ter­nal elec­tion. Or, the Prime Min­is­ter could win his seat, and ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion, de­clare that he is un­will­ing to serve as prime min­is­ter while still re­main­ing po­lit­i­cal leader.

Com­ment­ing on pos­si­ble op­tions yes­ter­day, for­mer min­is­ter turned po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor Ralph Maraj said, “Dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty he wants to do this.”

Hav­ing the Prime Min­is­ter and po­lit­i­cal leader as sep­a­rate peo­ple is un­prece­dent­ed in the coun­try but it is per­mis­si­ble.

“Legal­ly it can work, but prac­ti­cal­ly, it may be un­man­age­able,” said po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­dera Ram­per­sad.

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 76. (1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion:

(a) a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who is the Leader in that House of the par­ty which com­mand the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers of that House; or (b) where it ap­pears to him that that par­ty does not have an undis­put­ed leader in that House or that no par­ty com­mands the sup­port of such a ma­jor­i­ty, the mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who, in his judg­ment, is most like­ly to com­mand the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers of that House, and who is will­ing to ac­cept the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter.

But Ram­per­sad said that sce­nario could throw the par­ty in­to chaos and con­fu­sion if the po­lit­i­cal leader does not agree with the prime min­is­ter on cer­tain is­sues.

“You al­ways want the po­lit­i­cal leader and the prime min­is­ter to be on the same page be­cause you want con­sis­ten­cy with the de­ci­sions that are made,” she said.

Maraj mean­while said this is why it is eas­i­er if they are the same per­son.

“It is moral­ly wrong to be leav­ing and head­ing the se­lec­tion com­mit­tee to choose can­di­dates for the next po­lit­i­cal leader un­less he is go­ing to be your pup­pet prime min­is­ter,” Maraj said.

“Or if you wish to be po­lit­i­cal leader pulling the strings of your pup­pet prime min­is­ter. It is very pos­si­ble the par­ty will not tol­er­ate such a sce­nario and tur­bu­lence could even­tu­ate.”

In a No­vem­ber me­dia in­ter­view, Row­ley was asked about the pos­si­bil­i­ty, which he did not out­right de­ny. He was quot­ed as say­ing, “These are per­mu­ta­tions that the con­sti­tu­tion al­lows, both the lo­cal (PNM) and the na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion. So I don’t know how the de­ci­sion-mak­ing would play out in that sit­u­a­tion. And I am not here speak­ing to that sit­u­a­tion (hap­pen­ing) now, but if in mak­ing de­ci­sions go­ing for­ward, those per­mu­ta­tions oc­cur, they are all part of the process.”

How­ev­er, these is­sues on­ly come in­to play if the PNM wins the elec­tion.

“If they don’t win the elec­tion they’ll be in op­po­si­tion. The win­ning par­ty will get it all,” Dr Ram­per­sad said.