Mi­nus Par­lia­ment sit­ting yes­ter­day, the de­mands were ex­pect­ed to reach Gov­ern­ment via to­day’s protest out­side of White­hall.

Mes­sages to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley have been clear. In­clud­ing from his own par­ty.

Not all in Gov­ern­ment are short­sight­ed on the fact that every­thing can change in less than an hour. Cas­es in point: Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds ex­press­ing in­ter­est in con­test­ing Laven­tille West in Oc­to­ber, then with­draw­ing five days be­fore Mon­day’s screen­ing.

And Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce un­op­posed, sup­port­ed by par­ty groups and ex­ec­u­tive, then opt­ing out of the screen­ing. With in­trigu­ing ex­pla­na­tions. If 21st-cen­tu­ry sys­tems re­quire con­stant check­ing, Gov­ern­ment’s abysmal fail­ures - crime, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, court mat­ters, SSA, fight­ing with the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al - demon­strates the need for bet­ter ... man­age­ment.

Labour pres­sure in­flamed by Gov­ern­ment’s ac­cep­tance of the Salary Re­view Com­mis­sion re­port’s salary in­crease rec­om­men­da­tions - whose ex­act cost Gov­ern­ment must tell tax­pay­ers who have to foot their largesse bill - has arisen at a time of plum­met­ing prof­its by some large busi­ness­es, ex­ac­er­bat­ing eco­nom­ic de­cline con­cerns and un­cer­tain­ties from glob­al de­vel­op­ments. No Gov­ern­ment as­sur­ances, or al­ter­na­tives. Or forex so­lu­tion. What­ev­er aim for strate­gic tim­ing, Gov­ern­ment ap­par­ent­ly thinks it owns/runs Christ­mas al­so.

Row­ley’s SRC ac­cep­tance was ill-timed - just be­fore the sixth an­niver­sary of Gov­ern­ment’s Petrotrin re­fin­ery shut­down, with no in­vestor progress.

With is­sues out­side and in­side of the PNM – in­clud­ing be­fore the US ad­min­is­tra­tion changes un­hinge T&T’s prospects – fur­ther move to­wards seek­ing a fresh man­date aris­es via Mon­day’s con­clu­sion of To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my bills and the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s bound­ary changes or­der. Both elec­tion pre-cur­sors. Es­pe­cial­ly since the PNM re­quest­ed To­ba­go nom­i­na­tions by De­cem­ber 20 and has 32 of its 41 can­di­dates.

Pos­si­ble ear­li­er fresh man­date will prompt queries on whether that al­so con­cerns PNM’s Oc­to­ber Gen­er­al Coun­cil, where ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and Fos­ter Cum­mings braced Row­ley on in­ter­nal elec­tion post­pone­ment and lead­er­ship sig­nals.

Amid lead­er­ship si­lence on Laven­tille East/Mor­vant ex­ec­u­tive views on Leonce, Bap­tiste-Primus says, “I re­spect and sup­port the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive’s po­si­tion.”

PNM’s 12 in­cum­bents and Ka­reem Mar­celle (Laven­tille West) be­gan join­ing their col­leagues walk­ing UNC ar­eas, in­clud­ing St Joseph, on Wednes­day. Mar­celle must show tan­gi­ble Laven­tille West prob­lem im­prove­ment be­yond Mon­day’s “Team Ka­reem” youths. Al­so ahead: how PNM fares af­ter Moru­ga PNM ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Nathaniel Malchan joined UNC Moru­ga MP Michelle Ben­jamin.

Whether the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions are ac­cept­ed Mon­day al­so, or Gov­ern­ment amends the To­ba­go bills, they’re elec­tion chips – fail­ure al­low­ing blam­ing the Op­po­si­tion for de­priv­ing To­ba­go; vic­to­ry al­low­ing own­er­ship claim of au­ton­o­my un­der a To­bag­on­ian PM, boost­ing his lega­cy. An­oth­er elec­tion launch­er/sig­na­ture project, To­ba­go’s air­port ter­mi­nal is cloud­ed by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claims and Gov­ern­ment’s replies.

As op­po­si­tion in To­ba­go and gov­ern­ment in Trinidad, where PNM’s fight­ing un­pop­u­lar­i­ty over­all, its can­di­dates in­clude busi­ness­peo­ple in UNC ar­eas. Re­ten­tion of most in­cum­bents con­veyed con­tin­ued man­age­ment “sta­bil­i­ty “ of­fer. Changes would have con­firmed poor per­for­mance. Plus Row­ley’s re­turn­ing the team to PNM large­ly as it start­ed. Most PN­Mites ex­pect he’ll lead his troops in­to bat­tle. With de­feat, the ob­vi­ous pro­to­col’s ex­pect­ed; and vic­to­ry, his lead­er­ship term to De­cem­ber 2026 en­ters the ques­tion.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader Amery Browne (for­mer Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP) caused a stir in re­cent Bud­get de­bate, quip­ping he wasn’t a fre­quent vis­i­tor to that House, “But I once was, and who knows what the fu­ture holds.”

On whether he’d seek seat nom­i­na­tion and where, Browne said, “I’ll up­date you on this in the not too dis­tant fu­ture at a time I deem ap­pro­pri­ate. Be ful­ly as­sured - I re­main keen on con­tribut­ing to the fu­ture of our coun­try and the par­ty.”

UNC’s sig­nals in­di­cate Per­sad-Bisses­sar loy­al­ists will be re­turned with new faces in the tar­get­ed five PNM mar­gin­als and five es­tranged UNC MPs’ seats. Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s neg­a­tive view of “pop-up par­ties” hint that UNC’s align­ment with unions has bol­stered it. But NTA’s can­di­dates in key seats telegraphs the three-way fight (PNM’s bank­ing on to split votes) may af­fect UNC’s num­bers un­less man­aged more smooth­ly.