The last time PNM’s D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian was in Par­lia­ment on De­cem­ber 9—pre­ced­ing the cur­rent re­cess—she’d worn red.

Vot­ing for the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bill, she said “Yes.” Twice. On Tues­day, her Gov­ern­ment col­leagues re­turned to Par­lia­ment. In black, sign­ing a con­do­lence book fol­low­ing her death to­geth­er with her el­dest daugh­ter and youngest son, Mon­day gone. Trig­ger­ing mourn­ing across po­lit­i­cal par­ty lines and mulling of many is­sues since.

Death launched 2024. UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day in Jan­u­ary. PNM’s Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two fam­i­ly mem­bers this month, emo­tion­al­ly shat­ter­ing Gov­ern­ment. The PNM’s been vis­it­ed by De­cem­ber deaths be­fore, in­clud­ing for­mer MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald in 2023. But Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s was the first of a sit­ting MP and min­is­ter with such tragedy.

Griev­ing, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, un­abashed­ly ad­mit­ted to tor­rents of tears and “one of the sad­dest days” of his life. Row­ley, in 2020, ex­plained Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s ap­point­ment as Min­is­ter in Ed­u­ca­tion (along­side Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly), as putting T&T’s chil­dren “in the hands of two moth­ers ... I trust they couldn’t be bet­ter placed.” And Mor­ris-Ju­lian to the end, true to moth­er­hood cre­do, tried to pro­tect her chil­dren.

Open and hum­ble al­so sup­port Row­ley’s de­scrip­tion of her as the best Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive. She’d felt grief this year: her fa­ther dy­ing in March. In the nerve-wrack­ing time of PNM screen­ing, she’d shared that his mem­o­ry brought her com­fort. She was grat­i­fied at full sup­port from par­ty groups and units, say­ing, “I have a strong sup­port sys­tem, def­i­nite­ly a team ef­fort.”

Mor­ris-Ju­lian was al­so sad­dened by the No­vem­ber heart at­tack death of team ac­tivist Ray­heem Roberts. “A true PNM sol­dier … he was there for me each elec­tion and I hope he will be again,” she’d said with a down­cast emo­ji. “We had a PNM mourn­ing night for him, I cried be­cause he’d have loved it …”

Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren now have such ex­alt­ed com­pa­ny yon­der. Mean­while, PNM, on elec­tion brink, will have to en­sure the lessons and lega­cy of her life and death aren’t in vain.

Whether it im­proves PNM bond­ing re­mains ahead, along with post-fu­ner­al is­sues: con­stituen­cy care­tak­er, re-screen­ing nom­i­nees, pos­si­ble oth­er Min­is­ter in Ed­u­ca­tion - and how Gov­ern­ment han­dles pos­si­ble spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty bills with 21 MPs rather than 22. Or gets UNC “dis­si­dent” help.

Gov­ern­ment’s com­pe­ten­cy rat­ing took a “hit” fol­low­ing foul-up on the Pen­sion bill, will see the bill added to UNC’s list of items it claims the PNM will im­ple­ment with a pos­si­ble elec­tion vic­to­ry.

On the night of Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s death, UNC speak­ers boast­ed the par­ty would win the next elec­tion. Thurs­day’s nom­i­nee screen­ing in­clud­ed at­tor­neys De­vesh Ma­haraj (re­cent UNC con­sul­ta­tion speak­er) for St Joseph, Wayne Sturge (To­co/San­gre Grande) and John “Makamil­lion” Al­i­bo­cus (San Fer­nan­do East).

UNC’s PP coali­tion im­age took its own hit with leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and JTUM dis­tanc­ing them­selves from coali­tion part­ner PEP leader Phillip Alexan­der’s acer­bic com­ments on Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s death and Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is’s grief. Alexan­der—con­tin­u­ing glo­ri­fy­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar—is, how­ev­er, in­ex­tri­ca­bly iden­ti­fied with her and UNC.

Af­ter UNC’s uni­ty calls con­firmed its need for more votes, its sit­u­a­tion re­gard­ing small­er par­ties—mi­nus Gary Grif­fith’s NTA—is now con­tin­gent on for­mer COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har’s re­turn as in­ter­im leader and planned COP re­vival.

Whether that brings COP-HOPE-NTA’s “Pro­gres­sive Al­liance” in­to an arrange­ment with UNC, smooths ten­sions with Grif­fith, elim­i­nates threat of small­er par­ties af­fect­ing UNC in mar­gin­al seats—and Ra­mad­har re­cov­ers COP votes, neu­tral­is­ing Grif­fith’s NTA which tar­gets this.

Ra­mad­har said in Oc­to­ber he wouldn’t com­plete­ly rule out a re­turn to UNC and it’s not a “no go,” since T&T needs help. Ra­mad­har had held UNC’s St Au­gus­tine seat. UNC’s St Au­gus­tine nom­i­nee screen­ing last week re­mains in­com­plete.

Ra­mad­har’s re­woo­ing of COP mem­bers will have to live up to COP chair­man Lons­dale Williams’ re­cent cau­tion­ary state­ment; will have to fight COP’s failed uni­ty im­age dur­ing the PP gov­ern­ment and prob­lems, lead­ing to his 2016 res­ig­na­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s glacial re­jec­tion of Jack Warn­er’s in­creas­ing ap­peals to be part of UNC’s moves, placed Warn­er along­side Grif­fith, with whom he worked for UNC in 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls—sig­nalling, as oth­er moves have, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s seek­ing new­er po­lit­i­cal cur­ren­cy.