Power shift shakes ruling PNM to the core

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

2025 be­gan un­der the weight of a State of Emer­gency (SoE), but with­in just three days, that was eclipsed by a po­lit­i­cal bomb­shell. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced his in­ten­tion to re­sign, be­com­ing the first sit­ting head of gov­ern­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry to do so vol­un­tar­i­ly.

On Jan­u­ary 3, dur­ing his first me­dia con­fer­ence ad­dress­ing the SoE, af­ter fac­ing crit­i­cism for his ab­sence dur­ing its ini­tial an­nounce­ment, Dr Row­ley closed his re­marks dur­ing a brief­ing in To­ba­go with a stun­ning de­c­la­ra­tion.

“Be­fore the end of the le­gal lim­its of this term, I will re­sign this of­fice and go off to my fam­i­ly.”

Be­fore that state­ment, he re­mind­ed re­porters of a promise made ear­li­er.

“At the last elec­tion, 2020, when I an­nounced the PNM vic­to­ry in Bal­isi­er House, I said to this coun­try, I will not be do­ing that again. And I meant it. And I’ve kept it.”

That mo­ment set off a chain of in­ter­nal shifts with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). These were changes many in­sid­ers now be­lieve con­tributed to the par­ty’s even­tu­al elec­toral col­lapse and deep­en­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment among its base.

But the re­al gen­e­sis of the con­tro­ver­sy did not take place at Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain, but rather a vil­la at the end of a cul-de-sac at To­ba­go Plan­ta­tions in Low­lands, To­ba­go.

There, the then cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go, still led by Dr Row­ley, held a par­lia­men­tary cau­cus re­treat be­tween Jan­u­ary 5-6.

On the sur­face, the agen­da was to plan the par­ty’s ac­tiv­i­ties for the year. How­ev­er, be­hind closed doors at the vil­la, ten­sions were re­port­ed­ly high, as the par­ty, which had held gov­ern­ment for near­ly a decade, ap­peared di­vid­ed while at­tempt­ing to se­lect a suc­ces­sor to Row­ley.

That di­vi­sion would on­ly be re­vealed lat­er, as ini­tial­ly, it seemed as seam­less tran­si­tion.

On the last day of the re­treat, Dr Row­ley lift­ed the po­lice pres­ence which had kept the me­dia at a dis­tance from the venue and in­vit­ed jour­nal­ists to a me­dia brief­ing held at the steps of the vil­la.

And there it was an­nounced that Stu­art Young had been elect­ed to take over as prime min­is­ter when Row­ley of­fi­cial­ly stepped down.

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 the 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.”

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.”

Dr 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 lat­er told Guardian Me­dia the vote was 11-9 in favour of Young.

The oth­er per­son in the run­ning was Pen­ne­lope Beck­les. A day be­fore, as she left the Mag­dale­na Grand Ho­tel en route to the vil­la at To­ba­go Plan­ta­tions, Guardian Me­dia had asked Beck­les if she would have liked to lead the par­ty.

She replied, “Al­ways re­mem­ber that I did chal­lenge and I lost.”

Asked if she would con­sid­er putting her name for­ward again, Beck­les said, “We will see how things go.”

Fol­low­ing the par­ty’s de­feat in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tions un­der the lead­er­ship of Young, Beck­les would even­tu­al­ly be­come Op­po­si­tion Leader and PNM leader.

How­ev­er, the se­lec­tion of Young was not as smooth as the na­tion was ini­tial­ly led to be­lieve. Min­utes af­ter Dr Row­ley’s me­dia con­fer­ence, Guardian Me­dia was con­tact­ed by gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, who ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the vot­ing process in To­ba­go, al­leg­ing that po­lit­i­cal promis­es were used to in­flu­ence the out­come.

Mean­while, in Trinidad, par­ty stal­warts ques­tioned why the gen­er­al mem­ber­ship was not giv­en a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic voice to elect Row­ley’s re­place­ment.

Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus ar­gued that it was the par­ty’s gen­er­al coun­cil that had the fi­nal say in these mat­ters.

She told Guardian Me­dia, “While I recog­nise the par­ty’s par­lia­men­tary arm, that’s not the par­ty’s su­pe­ri­or body. The su­pe­ri­or body is PNM’s con­ven­tion. Be­tween con­ven­tion meet­ings, the gen­er­al coun­cil is the high­est rul­ing body.”

Bap­tiste-Primus was not the on­ly one to share that view.

That de­vel­op­ment shift­ed at­ten­tion to the PNM’s reg­u­lar month­ly gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House on Jan­u­ary 11. While gov­ern­ment min­is­ters sought to down­play the sig­nif­i­cance of the meet­ing, de­scrib­ing it as rou­tine par­ty busi­ness, Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that par­ty of­fi­cials were at­tempt­ing to quell in­ter­nal dis­cord aris­ing from the suc­ces­sion plan­ning process.

And at the end of the night, Young, along with Fos­ter Cum­mings, an­nounced that all 21 Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment had signed a doc­u­ment unan­i­mous­ly sup­port­ing Young as the next prime min­is­ter.

Young, who was al­so present at the news con­fer­ence, thanked Row­ley for his con­tin­ued lead­er­ship of the PNM.

“Im­por­tant­ly, my mes­sage is one of uni­ty and uni­fi­ca­tion,” Young said.

He added that he had been en­gaged in “very good di­a­logue” with his col­leagues, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter Cum­mings, not­ing that the scene at Bal­isi­er House was re­flec­tive of what is ex­pect­ed of the PNM.

SoE DE­BATE

With po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments dom­i­nat­ing the na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion, the coun­try’s State of Emer­gency had fad­ed in­to the back­ground. It re­turned sharply to fo­cus on Jan­u­ary 13, when the Low­er House con­vened to de­bate its ex­ten­sion.

There, then-Prime Min­is­ter Dr Row­ley said crime was so out of con­trol that even po­lice of­fi­cers close their po­lice sta­tions at night to hide from the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

Row­ley told the Low­er House, “So, when of­fi­cers are in the po­lice sta­tions, it has come to my at­ten­tion, in some dis­tricts, in some in­stances, po­lice of­fi­cers whose job it is to pro­tect us and se­cure us, in some dis­tricts at night, are so afraid of the crim­i­nals that they close the po­lice sta­tion door, turn off the light, and be in­side there hop­ing that the crim­i­nals don’t come at them.”

Mean­while, then-Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said lives could have been saved if the SoE had been de­clared ear­li­er.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “So here we are, with 600-plus mur­ders on that day just be­fore what we call Old Year’s Night, the Cab­i­net de­cid­ed, ‘Look, too much is too much.’

“Why then? Is it that on­ly be­cause cer­tain peo­ple, one gang fight­ing an­oth­er gang? Was it done to pro­tect the gang mem­bers, or was it done to pro­tect the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go? Be­cause the PM did re­fer to those in­ci­dents. Was it the last bomb? They flew off and said, ‘We have to get se­ri­ous and do some­thing’?”

The Low­er House even­tu­al­ly unan­i­mous­ly agreed to the three-month ex­ten­sion for the SoE.

TYSON AR­REST­ED

One of the most high-pro­file ar­rests dur­ing the SoE was ar­guably that of a man ac­cused of be­ing the rea­son the gov­ern­ment de­clared the State of Emer­gency.

A le­gal no­tice pub­lished in the T&T Gazette on Jan­u­ary 20 re­vealed that then-Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Fitzger­ald Hinds, had or­dered that Calvin Lee, whose alias is Tyson, should be de­tained at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in San­ta Rosa.

Ac­cord­ing to the no­tice, the de­ten­tion or­der was made on the grounds that Lee was “cred­i­bly iden­ti­fied” as a leader of the Sixx gang, cit­ing his po­ten­tial dan­ger to so­ci­ety.

“The de­tainee Car­lvin Lee, al­so called Calvin Lee, al­so called Tyson, has been cred­i­bly iden­ti­fied as the leader of a known crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion known as the SIXX gang, and as the per­son plan­ning and in­tend­ing to ex­e­cute vi­o­lent re­tal­ia­to­ry reprisals or oth­er vi­o­lent ac­tions in­volv­ing the use of high pow­ered weapons and ex­plo­sives, fol­low­ing an at­tempt­ed hit on his life and the mur­der of his as­so­ciate Trevor Williams on 28th De­cem­ber, 2024,” the no­tice state.

And lat­er that day, dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, DCP Op­er­a­tions Ju­nior Ben­jamin re­port­ed that since the SoE had been de­clared on De­cem­ber 30, 2024, some 1,193 pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers had been tar­get­ed in po­lice op­er­a­tions.

TOD­DLER DIES

On Jan­u­ary 23, a three-year-old boy was killed in what po­lice be­lieve was an ar­son at­tack at a home in Arou­ca.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tors, the child’s moth­er, Geneiel George, was at her Windy Hill res­i­dence around 11.45 pm when a man at­tempt­ed to force his way in­side through a win­dow. She tried to in­ter­vene but was over­pow­ered and fled with three of her chil­dren to seek help from a near­by rel­a­tive.

When she re­turned, the house was en­gulfed in flames. Fire of­fi­cers lat­er re­spond­ed and dis­cov­ered the re­mains of the child, iden­ti­fied as Ja­reem George, in the de­bris.

An­der­son Git­tens, a man with whom Ja­reem’s moth­er had a pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ship, was ar­rest­ed for the crime. The 32-year-old, how­ev­er, al­leged­ly com­mit­ted sui­cide while in po­lice cus­tody.

ER­LA FALLS FROM GRACE

Jan­u­ary end­ed with a stun­ning de­vel­op­ment with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, as then-po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher was de­tained and ques­tioned by of­fi­cers un­der her com­mand, an un­prece­dent­ed move that sent shock­waves through the TTPS.

The com­mis­sion­er was de­tained on Jan­u­ary 30, 2025.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion cen­tred on whether two AX-2 bolt-ac­tion sniper ri­fles were law­ful­ly im­port­ed in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go, whether the firearm im­port li­cence was prop­er­ly au­tho­rised by the po­lice com­mis­sion­er, and whether the weapons were un­law­ful­ly trans­ferred from the TTPS to the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency.

Her ar­rest was made on sus­pi­cion of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice in re­la­tion to her al­leged role in the firearms mat­ter, es­sen­tial­ly ques­tion­ing if she had im­prop­er­ly is­sued or failed to ex­er­cise prop­er due dili­gence in grant­i­ng the firearm im­port per­mit that en­abled the ri­fles to be brought in­to the coun­try.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Of­fice of the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice for In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, led by DCP Suzette Mar­tin, ques­tioned Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher for sev­er­al hours at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain. The in­ter­view, which be­gan at 3.40 pm, con­tin­ued late in­to the night, with Hare­wood-Christo­pher ac­com­pa­nied by her at­tor­ney.

The move came less than 24 hours af­ter for­mer SSA di­rec­tor, Ma­jor Roger Best, was ar­rest­ed at his Ari­ma res­i­dence over the pur­chase of the weapons.

On Feb­ru­ary 1, 2025, how­ev­er, Hare­wood-Christo­pher was re­leased from po­lice cus­tody with­out any crim­i­nal charges be­ing filed against her. Hare­wood-Christo­pher has since re­tired and tak­en le­gal ac­tion against the TTPS. The crim­i­nal mat­ter al­so re­mains un­re­solved.