What’s next for the PNM?

It’s unlikely that senior members of Cabinet were unaware of the Prime Minister’s decision to resign.

Was Stuart Young’s unusual statement at the news conference on the state of emergency that the PM’s presence would not have been “appropriate” a hint of this week’s development?

The PNM has long taken pride in its efficient internal political engine that has powered it through more than six decades of presence in TT’s political landscape.

It would be unusual for something as game-changing as the departure of its sitting PM less than a year before a general election is constitutionally due, not to have been factored into its planning.

Dr Rowley’s announcement came on the eve of a parliamentary caucus and the screening for Tobago candidates that begins on Sunday.

The PM’s resignation will undoubtedly shape today’s Cabinet retreat in Tobago, and MPs will most likely discuss the party’s immediate and long-term future.

This will be a new experience for the party.

Every other transition between political leadership has been undertaken under a pall of trauma and confusion.

Dr Eric Williams died in office and was replaced, with some attendant confusion, by George Chambers leaving supporters of Kamal Mohammed unsatisfied.

Mr Chambers left the job in ignominy after leading the party to an undignified rout in the 1986 general elections, winning just three of the 36 parliamentary seats.

Patrick Manning, one of the three party candidates elected in 1986, led the party until 2010 when he called an early election and lost to the People’s Partnership.

Dr Rowley had notably contested Mr Manning in 1996 for the role of leadership of the PNM in its internal elections, winning 40 per cent of the vote, to return from years in the party’s political dog house and his dismissal from Cabinet to serve as its new political leader and prime minister.

Dr Rowley will continue as political leader until the end of his term in 2026, but questions remain with his retirement announcement.

Will he give a nod to any of the members of Cabinet touted as potential political leaders?

What role does he expect to play in reengineering the party to an election footing?

Whenever the PNM has been reshaped in the past, it’s been the result of the popular vote. While nothing needs to change before the end of August, when the 12th Republican Parliament is expected to end, a general election is due 90 days later.

Now the PNM must decide what it wants to be and how it will achieve a popular mandate in the next election.

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