Rowley’s astonishing adieu

IT TOOK just seven minutes for the Prime Minister to announce the end of a career that has lasted half-a-century.

The decision of Dr Rowley, 75, to resign from office is not surprising, but the way he opted on January 3 to convey his intention to do so is unprecedented and extraordinary.

At the tail end of a media conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in Tobago, which was supposed to be about the state of emergency, the PNM leader was asked about a retreat his party is due to have on the island on January 5.

Dr Rowley noted candidate screening is ongoing amid a general election year. Then, looking downwards sombrely, he stated: “There is something else I want to say. I think the time has come for me to put some business before the country.”

That “business” is that he will withdraw from office before the end of the limit of his term; he will not seek re-election as Diego Martin West MP; and he will “go off” to his family. After dropping this bombshell, he left.

Mere days prior, the PM, presiding over the Cabinet, had triggered the emergency but remained largely absent. Friday’s news conference was his first since that measure came into effect on December 30. The country, thus, looked to the event for answers.

All came away with more questions, not the least of which concern what is to unfold in the next eight months in relation to the emergency, the governance of the country, and the fate of the party which Dr Rowley has led since June 27, 2010.

Will parliamentary leadership – ­­as opposed to political leadership – shift at the next caucus?

What is clear is that Dr Rowley’s decision cannot be divorced from the country’s mood.

The trauma of the death of Lisa Morris-Julian, yet another deadly energy company disaster, a record surge in murders, and the shocking assassination of a prosecutor have wrought a dangerous sense of disrepair. The PM himself has been nursing grief over the death of a brother. Oil and gas revenues are down.

“I have never been office-crazy,” he wrote in his memoir, From Mason Hall to Whitehall. “I actively encourage succession planning.”

And yet, Dr Rowley now enters history like a figure resembling Joe Biden in the US.

Driven by circumstances, the ship’s captain has opted to step away from the wheel – whether or not planning to do so all along – on the eve of an election.

In so doing, he becomes, for the moment, an exposed and vulnerable premier, placing his party, and the country, in uncertain waters.

It is an astonishing move for a two-term prime minister, an incredible adieu.