De­spite no House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds still faced the “mu­sic” with an Op­po­si­tion ques­tion in the Sen­ate, his ears like­ly ring­ing af­ter UNC’s name-call­ing on Thurs­day in his di­rec­tion.

UNC’s Clax­ton Bay Pave­ment meet­ing then sig­nalled an ap­par­ent gut­ter-ad­ja­cent lo­ca­tion. “Nasty” is the mildest in­vec­tive hurled at Hinds by UNC’s Khadi­jah Ameen. MP Roodal Mooni­lal was pun on point: “This coun­try will fi­nal­ly see the rear of Hinds—an ug­ly sight as it may be ... When some­one demits of­fice, you nor­mal­ly say, ‘This is the end of an era,’ but with Hinds leav­ing, this is the end of many er­rors …”

UNC’s “blaze” fol­lowed Thurs­day’s ad­mis­sions by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Hinds’ with­draw­al as Laven­tille West can­di­date and on ac­cept­ing the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s salary hike rec­om­men­da­tion—both of which UNC con­tin­ued pound­ing Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day.

De­spite PNM Laven­tille West ex­ec­u­tive’s agree­ment to rec­om­mend Hinds at Mon­day’s screen­ing for 15 con­stituen­cies, Laven­tille West, first to be screened Mon­day, will en­ter mi­nus a rec­om­men­da­tion from the ex­ec­u­tive af­ter Hinds in­formed them Wednes­day of his with­draw­al fol­low­ing fam­i­ly con­cerns.

It’s been in the works a while, and he hasn’t changed po­si­tion de­spite tears that flowed Wednes­day from ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and sub­se­quent ap­peals.

Hinds, helm­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty since 2021, in­clud­ing be­ing ham­strung with de­fi­cient sys­tems, has tak­en the blows for the Gov­ern­ment on se­cu­ri­ty fail­ure to the ex­tent of dam­ag­ing his own pro­file such that re­turn­ing as MP in a key PNM hotspot was un­ten­able. In­clud­ing for an em­bat­tled Gov­ern­ment fight­ing “fail­ure” oth­er­wise.

Lack of sup­port in some ar­eas sig­nalled se­ri­ous straits. Screen­ing team re­jec­tion or ap­proval would have dou­bled and jeop­ar­dised the Gov­ern­ment. With­draw­al—car­ry­ing its own neg­a­tives—has re­moved Hinds as a tar­get and the Gov­ern­ment’s need to change him.

Laven­tille West now re­quires a blend of strong ex­pe­ri­ence, re­solve and pro­fes­sion­al­ism able to with­stand UNC’s flag plant­ed at a Beetham Bus Route bor­der. Lessons from Hinds’ ex­pe­ri­ence over­hang Mon­day’s screen­ing of about 24 nom­i­nees for 15 PNM con­stituen­cies—“guide­lines” be­yond the fact that some in­cum­bents are un­op­posed, rec­om­mend­ed by ex­ec­u­tives, or that six MPs are on PNM’s 16-mem­ber ex­ec­u­tive.

Eyes are on a hand­ful of E/W cor­ri­dor seats and two South­ern where con­cerns hov­er. What­ev­er changes/con­tin­u­a­tion of can­di­dates will have to be bal­anced with views on SRC’s hike is­sue that they’re worth it. Row­ley’s ac­cep­tance of the rec­om­men­da­tions—when as­sort­ed en­ti­ties de­mand more—and pre­pared­ness to face the flack is his lat­est demon­stra­tion of strength.

Whether an­oth­er sign of re­tire­ment wish, the term’s end will dic­tate the cost of his gam­ble on fac­ing the pub­lic po­lit­i­cal de­bate rather than de­lay­ing the long­stand­ing rec­om­men­da­tion and fur­ther in­creas­ing back pay, which, how­ev­er, will be taxed, as­sist­ing the Trea­sury.

Af­ter Row­ley’s move chal­leng­ing the Op­po­si­tion on han­dling the funds, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s view of the SRC pro­pos­als was “not at this time,” hint­ing at an­oth­er. But her sal­vo sig­nalled she won’t let the de­vel­op­ment be for­got­ten, and it’s an elec­tion is­sue.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s own strength-dis­play­ing and ground-sol­i­dar­i­ty pol­i­tick­ing has em­u­lat­ed sev­er­al of US Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump’s, whose le­gal is­sues didn’t af­fect his vic­to­ry.

Mon­day’s UNC con­sul­ta­tions re­vealed more of UNC’s le­gal con­trib­u­tors—at­tor­neys Jagdeo Singh and De­vesh Ma­haraj—saw Per­sad-Bisses­sar trum­pet­ing “Tri­nis First” warn­ings fol­low­ing the mur­der of her con­stituent.

This mir­rors Trump’s fo­cus on bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, dri­ven by cas­es like the re­cent life sen­tence for Venezue­lan il­le­gal im­mi­grant Jose Ibar­ra, who mur­dered stu­dent Lak­en Ri­ley. UNC’s Re­pub­li­can play­book in­cludes in­ves­ti­ga­tions against PNM probes, pop­ulist plans.

Like Trump, whose tenure—last as pres­i­dent—is ex­pect­ed to see a strong lega­cy launch­ing sig­na­ture moves, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ac­tions sig­nal no hes­i­tan­cy. How this ex­tends to can­di­date se­lec­tion is on and what new faces UNC pro­duces—in San Fer­nan­do West, for in­stance—to match PNM’s af­ter Hinds’ with­draw­al.

Aim­ing to win five PNM “mar­gin­als” and se­cure MP Rush­ton Paray’s group’s five seats, there’s lit­tle room to reshuf­fle loy­al­ist front­lin­ers, 11 of whom al­so com­prise UNC’s 18-mem­ber ex­ec­u­tive. Po­ten­tial­ly like for­mer St Au­gus­tine MP Vas­ant Bharath, it will un­fold as a test of the re­newed good faith be­tween him­self and Per­sad-Bisses­sar on whether he’ll get St Au­gus­tine.