The best thing that the new Gov­ern­ment can do is gov­ern well.

In a very re­al way, this elec­tion was not about pow­er at all; at least, not from the point of view of the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens. The peo­ple had had enough of pow­er over the last ten years, es­pe­cial­ly over the last five. They want­ed to move on from that. They didn’t think that Dr Kei­th Row­ley be­haved well nor did well by them. They didn’t think that then-min­is­ter Stu­art Young had earned the right to be prime min­is­ter. That be­came clear­er as the cam­paign pro­gressed, in­side and out­side the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). Some were not sure that Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her team had earned the right to gov­ern­ment ei­ther. But most felt Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­served to be prime min­is­ter more than Young. And that is how the psy­chol­o­gy played out in the end.

This elec­tion was not about race or di­vi­sive­ness. Peo­ple just de­cid­ed to turn their backs on a bad gov­ern­ment. Peo­ple vot­ed for change. Change from what we had and change to some­thing else. Those who did not vote, gave their qui­et con­sent to a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) vic­to­ry. The 46 per cent who would not choose, who were not hap­py about the op­tions, will on­ly be in­spired if they see a good gov­ern­ment at work at some point. They ex­pect more from pol­i­tics and gov­ern­ment. And every cit­i­zen wants a bet­ter coun­try. UNC sup­port­ers want to feel vin­di­cat­ed.

T&T crossed a ma­jor bridge in the 2025 elec­tion and lead­ers of both ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties should in­ter­nalise the mean­ing of this cross­ing and seek to lever­age it in a pos­i­tive way. They need to take our coun­try fur­ther and our peo­ple high­er. The peo­ple of T&T de­serve no less.

The peo­ple want the Gov­ern­ment to suc­ceed. What will it take for Gov­ern­ment to do the right things and to de­liv­er tan­gi­ble progress? Cit­i­zens wish the Gov­ern­ment well. They just want to ex­pe­ri­ence im­prove­ment.

The Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment will have their first Cab­i­net meet­ing to­day. What­ev­er else that Cab­i­net meet­ing is about, it should al­so be about how much mon­ey each min­is­ter is like­ly to have in their bud­get un­til the end of the fis­cal year. Min­is­ters should con­sid­er what they wish to con­tin­ue and what they want to change in each min­istry, in keep­ing with the pri­or­i­ties of the new Gov­ern­ment. And they should get a grasp of how things get done.

A big choice for the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, would be whether new pri­or­i­ties over the next four months are fi­nanced by ad­di­tion­al fund­ing, which will like­ly be deficit fund­ing or, by re­al­lo­ca­tion with­in the ex­ist­ing bud­get. How this is dealt with, can be an im­por­tant sig­nal to the coun­try and for the fu­ture.

But the Gov­ern­ment should fo­cus on what to ac­tion in the next few months. How well im­me­di­ate in­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al pri­or­i­ties do align with over­all pol­i­cy in­ten­tions, should be some­thing to con­sid­er for co­her­ence, and al­so, as a step­ping­stone in­to the next bud­get. This will help to set the tone of the new Gov­ern­ment.

The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the Prime Min­is­ter will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to make Gov­ern­ment’s case more ful­ly dur­ing the mid-term re­view: both in terms of their pre­de­ces­sor’s per­for­mance, and al­so, what the new Gov­ern­ment will be do­ing; that is to say, what de­par­tures the Gov­ern­ment will be mak­ing; what they will be do­ing dif­fer­ent­ly and why.

And in their next bud­get in Sep­tem­ber or ear­ly Oc­to­ber, the Gov­ern­ment should present the first year of its plan of ac­tion for T&T, with frame­work, con­text, pri­or­i­ties, bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion and an ex­pla­na­tion of why they are do­ing these things in the con­text of poli­cies they wish to pur­sue and what they hope to achieve.

I hope that by to­day, the Gov­ern­ment will have enough in­for­ma­tion on the coun­try’s fi­nances to make sense of the fis­cal chal­lenge. And I trust that by the next Cab­i­net meet­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter will al­so get from the Cen­tral Bank a com­pre­hen­sive un­der­stand­ing of every ac­count a gov­ern­ment must know about to help them to de­sign a draft medi­um term na­tion­al plan for at least the next three years and a fis­cal plan to sup­port it over the pe­ri­od.

If the Gov­ern­ment can take stock of the fi­nances now; take de­ci­sions on ac­tion shifts by mid-term; and present na­tion­al pol­i­cy doc­u­ments by bud­get day, for con­sid­er­a­tion, that would sig­nal se­ri­ous­ness, com­mit­ment, and will­ing­ness to en­gage. And it would be a won­der­ful start for the Gov­ern­ment, the peo­ple and for good gov­er­nance.