Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived at the Par­lia­ment build­ing on Thurs­day even be­fore the new Par­lia­ment term start­ed, bear­ing a sin­gu­lar state­ment, “We’ll fix it …”

That theme’s ex­pect­ed as a term-long bat­tle cry on chal­lenges, plus is a con­ve­nient five-year cam­paign slo­gan.

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Pen­ny Beck­les’ de­c­la­ra­tion on Tues­day that there will be no hon­ey­moon for Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­min­is­tra­tion is a truth on its own, like­ly one of the few points agreed on by the var­i­ous sides in the PNM, now rift-rid­den as it at­tempts re­tool­ing fol­low­ing the Gen­er­al Elec­tion beat­down.

Both per­spec­tives make for … in­ter­est­ing times in the up­com­ing 13th Par­lia­ment ex­pect­ed to launch with a full cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing with­in two weeks. Of­fi­cials said the time has elapsed for prepa­ra­tions for a May 16 open­ing and the launch may be lat­er, around May 23.

For both fe­male lead­ers - in a po­lit­i­cal land­scape now dom­i­nat­ed by such - to­mor­row’s Moth­er’s Day greet­ings will be edged with ex­pec­ta­tions which will in­crease with time. And in­frac­tions.

Min­is­ters’ first week re­vealed find­ings that will shape not on­ly na­tion­al-scale ac­tion and de­vel­op­ment but al­so po­lit­i­cal push against the PNM to se­cure the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ foot­ing.

T&T’s largest Cab­i­net, at 25, is al­most size of the US cab­i­net, which at 26 is the world’s largest. Shifts from Venezue­lan en­er­gy prospects to Guyana - where US in­vest­ment is high - has re­in­forced the per­cep­tion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “friend and al­ly” stand­ing with the US, af­ter em­u­lat­ing a come­back like US jefe Don­ald Trump’s. A gath­er­ing was held with US of­fi­cials on Wednes­day, sources said.

While the UNC es­capes ac­cu­sa­tions of “raid­ing the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund” - as they ac­cused PNM - ap­point­ments show long-term plans. Tag team ex­per­tise of Fi­nance and Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs. Triple at­ten­tion on se­cu­ri­ty. Ex-PNM At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to neu­tralise PNM MPs old and new.

Labour moves to paci­fy volatil­i­ty where a threat could loom. Sports/Youth ap­point­ment har­ness­ing youths. En­er­gy Min­is­ter hold­ing the hard­est port­fo­lio, which, if suc­cess­ful, boosts his fu­ture lead­er­ship stocks. A Works Min­is­ter - rout­ing the Pan­day im­age in his seat - whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and close­ness to ground boosts her prospects al­so. A Hous­ing trio to se­cure UNC’s fu­ture elec­tion ground.

All with 2026 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls ex­pect­ed ear­ly enough to ben­e­fit from UNC’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion wave and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion (due be­tween De­cem­ber-March 2026) ex­pect­ed to re­coup eight lost dis­tricts with au­ton­o­my leg­is­la­tion and bet­ter fund­ing from the UNC.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pro­jec­tion of a new po­lice com­mis­sion­er un­der her Gov­ern­ment ma­te­ri­alis­es af­ter CoP Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s con­tract ends on May 15. Over 10 ap­pli­ca­tions were re­ceived since last April, most­ly from males. With the process al­most com­plet­ed, a mer­it list will be sent to the Pres­i­dent with the first name for­ward­ed to the Par­lia­ment for de­bate.

Beck­les’ Tues­day ad­dress em­ployed points for con­nec­tion, in­clud­ing cast­ing her in a sim­i­lar light as Per­sad-Bisses­sar (who didn’t lose an in­ter­nal lead­er­ship elec­tion or was re­ject­ed by 11 MPs in To­ba­go). Al­so util­tised was Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s style of di­rect speech and peo­ple-cen­tred fo­cus. State­ments which con­ced­ed the PNM had lost the lat­ter.

But de­feat al­lows nei­ther room nor time to bank on sim­i­lar­i­ties, dat­ed faces or crony­ism over com­pe­tence.

PNM, which lost face and voice on April 28, is amid a com­fort­ably seat­ed ad­min­is­tra­tion and Prime Min­is­ter whose lega­cy in­cludes re­turn­ing her team to Gov­ern­ment, with sharp­er ex­per­tise af­ter 10 years in Op­po­si­tion, now seek­ing to re­tain/en­trench the UNC’s ex­pand­ed base - in­clud­ing for­mer PN­MItes. Gov­ern­ing the pub­lic and coun­try with open right hand; left, back­hand­ing op­po­nents.

De­spite pre­sent­ing dif­fer­ent lead­er­ship to the PNM’s pre­vi­ous, Beck­les is faced with deep­en­ing di­vi­sion from the PNM Change­mak­ers’ lob­by. She not­ed the PNM’s un­healed sit­u­a­tion at Tues­day’s meet­ing, when she cit­ed the “wor­ry­ing­ly” close 60/58 vote for chair­man be­tween Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and PoS may­or Chin­ua Al­leyne. Be­tween push­back on new lead­er­ship - un­seen in 2010 - and as­sort­ed signs of di­vi­sion, the PNM’s be­hind on re­spons­es to Gov­ern­ment state­ments. Fac­ing the UNC’s na­tion­al uni­ty line­up, its House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives team is al­so dis­ad­van­taged - lack­ing In­do-Tri­nis.

The pe­ri­od to its in­ter­nal elec­tion - ex­pect­ed be­tween six to eight weeks - is ex­pect­ed to see in­creased in­fight­ing as the UNC moves to mid-year re­view and an ear­ly 2026 Bud­get.