By Prior Beharry
PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley says if he had known he would be missed, he would have left politics long ago.
Waxing philosophical in a speech with anecdotes, the political leader of the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) addressed the media at the party’s annual Mix and Mingle at Balisier House in Port of Spain on Wednesday evening for what should be his last time as prime minister and political leader of the party.
He said, “I won’t be talking to you a lot in the not to distant future so I hope you don’t forget me.”
Dr Rowley will step down as prime minister and hand over the reins to Energy Minister Stuart Young before his term ends in about eight months.
He quipped, “If I had known that I would be missed, I would have left a long time ago. But as my grandmother says nothing happens before its time and my time is drawing nigh.
“I am very pleased to see so many young people in the media because you will be walking in time with an equivalent number of young people in the PNM because our transition is being affected and the future of his country is bright and secure, the PNM and the media corps of T&T.”
He told of the first time he went to Queen’s Hall in Trinidad as a schoolboy from Bishop’s High School in Tobago for the Youth Speaking Contest that he won in Tobago and came to the finals in 1967 against other students from Trinidad.
Dr Rowley said when he went on stage and the curtains opened he froze and never said a word.
He said, “Here I was this lonely Tobagonian, with my principal in the wings, waiting for me to perform. And I stood in my shoes and I wondered. I was so taken up with the ambience, with the crowd that I could not bring my mind to focus on what I was there for which I was to speak.
“I am looking at this huge audience in Queen’s Hall hoping that I’ll see a face that I recognise and I realised that I was all alone and I never said a word.
“I stood there and I watched this crowd, I watched the roof, I watched the floor, I looked around, quite impressed actually,” he said to laughter.
Dr Rowley added, “It was the first time I had seen Queen’s Hall… and it was full of people. And I was impressed, the Hall was on a slope so it was all the way to the back and it looked like an eternity but it must have been like two minutes and then my principal took me off.
“And that was how I started my speaking career saying absolutely nothing but getting a prize.”
He recalled the story since he pulled the book from his library from his Goodwood Park home that he visited on Sunday. He said that it may not have been a happenstance that he pulled that book prize he had got in 1967.
Dr Rowley said that scenario was never repeated in his life again as “I quietly vowed to myself that I would never be in that situation again that if I had something to say I will say it without let or hindrance. And I have done that in Trinidad and Tobago from 1970 to 2025.”
He said T&T has a very vibrant media corp.
Dr Rowley added, “Because lots of time we think about you before we think and before we act. If we do make a mistake and act before we think… we are reminded by the media that you are there.”
He said, “I want to thank all of you in the media from trying so hard, sometimes to get me to a place of silence but most times in recording the words that I would have uttered.”
Dr Rowley recalled stalwarts who were with him along the journey like former prime minster Patrick Manning and ministers Morris Marshall and Ken Valley.
He told the media that T&T was a place they should feel proud about despite challenges.
Dr Rowley said, “But because we have survived these challenges and we have to continue to survive these challenges at the end of the day the reward is sweeter and you the media, you have a responsibility when you go out in the orchard to not just describe sour oranges, at least spend a little time talking about the flowers and let our children know that even as we have to work and they should work for our future, the present is worth enjoying.”
He added, “I am happy that we can host you here as a political party and you could feel comfortable coming into the headquarters of a political party that you criticise from time to time, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly, sometimes severely.
“But that you miss it so much that last week you spent more time worrying about the PNM future than the PNM itself, indicating to me that there is some Tobago love there between you and the PNM.”
Dr Rowley said, “And that should tell you and tell us in the PNM that we have a significant role to play because when the media begins to miss you, that is their way of saying, ‘I love you’.”
Speaking before Dr Rowley was prime minister-designate Stuart Young who compared the States of Emergencies called in 2011 and 2024.
He said the PNM government, in the current SoE has not restricted freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Young said, “PNM takes press freedom very seriously.”
He told the media, “We may not always see things eye to eye. That is part of the tension between a government and a political party and the media but at no point in time in the last ten years and even before that, can the media honestly and truthfully say that anyone with any position in the PNM especially from Balisier house led by our PM and political leader has ever provided misinformation to the media. But unfortunately that is elements that seems to be building itself up.”
Young said, “With us, there will always have a government and a party that respects press freedom and freedom of speech and we will continue to work with you in a very respectful relationship as we go forward into his important season and it is use one simple ask as chairman of the PNM, when people are pushing out information to you all… it is very simple to do the fact checking because you have the responsibility to the rest of us in the population and the citizens to provide us what is factual and what is truthful.”
