The mood was a mix­ture of hype and anx­i­ety and the lan­guage and dis­po­si­tion of UNC’s Na­pari­ma Col­lege meet­ing was up­beat for a time.

But one week in­to the cam­paign, half of the can­di­dates re­main unan­nounced. The Op­po­si­tion Leader said it is a strate­gic de­ci­sion to de­lay. It seems the pref­er­ence of the leader of the UNC Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, is to an­nounce her 39 can­di­dates af­ter some of those re­main­ing se­lect­ed can­di­dates have filed their can­di­da­cy pa­pers with the EBC. What is like­ly to hap­pen, there­fore, is that some in­cum­bent par­lia­men­tar­i­ans wiĺl be dropped for new faces, per­haps, to bring fresh­ness to the team, to ad­dress so-called dis­si­dents, and to re­place oth­ers for what­ev­er rea­son and, per­haps, to sur­prise.

The PNM did not call their Wood­ford Square meet­ing a launch, be­cause up to that day, they were, per­haps, not sure of the elec­tion date. But it was in every way a launch, with 41 can­di­dates, though weak on pol­i­cy. The UNC called their post-elec­tion an­nounce­ment meet­ing a launch, but on­ly some can­di­dates were an­nounced and there was a smat­ter­ing of promis­es, and align­ment of the leader and par­ty with the poor, strug­gling and the down­trod­den.

The PNM cam­paign seems to be: “Fear a re­turn of a cor­rupt UNC.” The UNC cam­paign seems to be: “The PNM is not for you, or­di­nary cit­i­zens. They are for them­selves and their friends to form a cor­rupt al­liance against you.” With­in this frame, cit­i­zens are be­ing asked to make a choice of less­er evils.

No par­ty is iden­ti­fy­ing the stress­ful prob­lems of our coun­try, and propos­ing so­lu­tions for them. But po­lit­i­cal chal­lenges con­front all par­ties and gov­er­nance chal­lenges await the par­ty that wins. And vot­er en­thu­si­asm re­mains an is­sue.

The PNM has ac­knowl­edged that fi­nance and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty are key min­istries that re­quire re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion; and that im­ple­men­ta­tion, ef­fi­cien­cy main­te­nance and are prob­lems al­so. So Vish­nu Dhan­paul has re­placed Colm Im­bert and Mar­vin Gon­za­les has re­placed Fitzger­ald Hinds. And a new min­istry will be es­tab­lished. Will these changes in­spire peo­ple to come out and vote? Per­haps. What do you think?

Will the an­nounce­ment of new UNC can­di­dates boost their mo­men­tum? Pos­si­bly, be­cause they are in op­po­si­tion, of­fer­ing them­selves for gov­ern­ment and some­thing that sig­nals min­is­te­r­i­al tal­ent ca­pa­ble of solv­ing prob­lems could give them a boost.

But our ma­jor chal­lenges are eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty and pub­lic safe­ty in a gang-rid­den re­pub­lic. The T&T econ­o­my has shrunk by about 18%, job­less­ness is high and peo­ple are not even both­er­ing to look for work. This means less peo­ple with in­come streams in the so­ci­ety.

Fi­nan­cial­ly, our rev­enues have fall­en be­cause of sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion. Con­tin­u­ing with cur­rent lev­els of ex­pen­di­ture means fur­ther an­nu­al deficits Some 85% of our food is im­port­ed and our forex rev­enue is re­duced and our re­serves dwin­dling; and the struc­ture of busi­ness out­side of en­er­gy makes them con­sumers, not earn­ers, of for­eign ex­change. This is so re­gard­less of the size of the busi­ness.

If gangs con­tin­ue to ex­ist, and our schools are feed­ers for gang re­cruit­ment; if guns are eas­i­ly avail­able and our jus­tice sys­tem does not work and vi­o­lent crim­i­nals per­sist and our pris­ons do not de­ter nor re­ha­bil­i­tate; and law en­force­ment is some­times com­pro­mised, how are cit­i­zens go­ing to feel safe and live in rel­a­tive peace­ful­ness?

Cit­i­zens need an­swers to the com­pelling ques­tions about our so­cioe­co­nom­ic, fi­nan­cial and safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. Be­cause cit­i­zens know in­stinc­tive­ly that the an­swer to their con­fu­sion, dis­ori­en­ta­tion, in­sta­bil­i­ty and dis­tress is not five more years of the same PNM. But they al­so know that gangs, guns and crime, eco­nom­ic hard­ship and short­age of for­eign ex­change will not all dis­ap­pear in­stant­ly if UNC be­comes the gov­ern­ment on April 29th. So, both par­ties, in a way, have boxed them­selves in.

And then there is the un­pre­dictabil­i­ty of de­ci­sion-mak­ing of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, which has gripped the world be­cause of geopo­lit­i­cal repo­si­tion­ing, the pend­ing mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion of de­vel­op­ing coun­tries and the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the Caribbean re­gion in such a con­text, which re­quires a col­lec­tive re­gion­al re­cal­i­bra­tion.

While par­ty peo­ple may be in dis­pute with each oth­er, and the par­ties with one an­oth­er, cit­i­zens have lit­tle in­ter­est in such quar­rels. They want their prob­lems solved, a bet­ter coun­try where they can share in grow­ing pros­per­i­ty and feel hap­pi­er, and they want an hon­est gov­ern­ment that gov­erns well, is truth­ful to the pop­u­la­tion and which, sin­cere­ly and ded­i­cat­ed­ly, serves the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

Which par­ty will step up to the plate and treat our cit­i­zens with re­spect by ac­knowl­edg­ing our for­mi­da­ble de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges and ex­plain­ing a cred­i­ble path­way to prob­lem-solv­ing, in­cre­men­tal progress, peace, se­cu­ri­ty, sta­bil­i­ty, na­tion­al re­demp­tion and sov­er­eign self-con­fi­dence?