section_path: Prime minister
section_name: Prime minister
paragraph_text: Prime minister
  
  Rowley led the People's National Movement in the September 2015 general election, in which his party secured 23 out of 41 seats in the House of Representatives to form the government, defeating the previous People's Partnership coalition government. On 9 September 2015, Rowley was sworn in as Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago by President Anthony Carmona. He becomes the seventh Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and the second Tobago-born Prime Minister. Rowley again led the People's National Movement to victory in the 2020 Trinidad and Tobago general election for a second term in government under his premiership. He was sworn in as Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago on 19 August by President Paula-Mae Weekes at the President's House in St. Anns after the opposition party asked for recounts to be done in marginal constituencies.
  
  During his tenure, on 5 February 2022, the Trinidad and Tobago coast guard fired upon a vessel with Venezuelan migrants while attempting to stop it, killing a nine-month-old baby and injuring his mother. The coast guard claimed that the shots were fired "in self-defense". Rowley deemed the action "legal and appropriate"; the Trinidadian police and coast guard opened an investigation of the event.
  
  At the PNM convention in August 2024, Rowley announced his support for the Caribbean Court of Justice to replace the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as Trinidad and Tobago's final court of appeals. He also announced his government would legislate to remove Christopher Columbus 's ships from the national coat of arms and replace them with the steelpan drum, which had been declared the official national music instrument a few months earlier. He stated that the changes would "signal that we are on our way to removing the colonial vestiges that we have in our country".