By: Capil Bissoon
June 9, 2026
_*A most misleading headline… An Opposition MP with no mandate from the Government CANNOT represent the country at any international meeting!_*
An online news outlet earlier this week carried its major story captioned, “The Honourable Stuart R. Young, Member of Parliament for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and Senior Counsel at Integritas Chambers, is serving as a featured speaker at the Association of International Energy Negotiators, International Energy Summit 2026. Young, who serves as an Opposition MP, is representing the twin-island republic at this highly anticipated global gathering” Really… this is a most mislead headline!
Stuart Young is not a member of the Administration; he is definitely not involved in the Government’s energy sector and has no business to be asserting himself in any international forum purporting to have any influence in the country’s energy sector.
Young knows this but continues to behave as though he is still an official either the former Minister of Energy or worse yet, the shortest-lived Prime Minister of the country.
So, it begs the question, just what is he doing in New Orleans and who is he really representing?
But this is not Young’s first rodeo with this type of undiplomatic and unaccepted political behaviour.
Less than six weeks ago, he quietly slipped out of the country and headed to Caracas for a one-on-one meeting with Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, using the hashtag “#personagrata” which came across as a direct political jab aimed at Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. In October of last year, Venezuela’s National Assembly officially declared Persad-Bissessar persona non grata, heavily criticizing her administration and accusing the Trinidad and Tobago government of supporting United States military aggression against the Bolivarian Republic.
Once again, Young seems to have deliberately set up this meeting in the midst of a highly sensitive time for energy negotiations between the GORTT (of which he is not a member) and the Venezuelan Administration which is to restart negotiations on the lucrative cross-border oil and gas resources shared between the two countries.
In all of this, Opposition Leader Penny Beckles seems to be unaware of his overseas shenanigans as he continues to attempt to undermine the UNC-led Administration and creating political mischief on the international scene by giving the impression that he is still a part of the decision-making process.
But worse still is the belief that as Young is continuing to sow the seeds of internal leadership squabbles in the Party by deliberately marginalizing and undermining his Leader with his burning desire to be politically relevant to retake the leadership from Beckles.
Email your opinions, letters and commentaries to: letters@caribmagplus.com