Now that the votes have been cast and count­ed af­ter a bruis­ing elec­tion cam­paign, it is time for the po­lit­i­cal win­ners and losers to fo­cus on the com­mon goal of build­ing a bet­ter T&T.

The hot­ly con­test­ed poll laid bare dif­fer­ences with­in this so­ci­ety that will need to be ad­dressed with as much ur­gency as crime and the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges that were the ma­jor is­sues on the var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal plat­forms.

The peo­ple have spo­ken. All stake­hold­ers had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ho­n­our this coun­try’s long-es­tab­lished tra­di­tion of choos­ing elect­ed of­fi­cials in a free and fair man­ner by their peace­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion in the process.

In ad­di­tion, the con­duct of the poll was mon­i­tored by ob­servers from the Com­mon­wealth and Cari­com.

Mov­ing for­ward as a na­tion, how­ev­er, hinges up­on a gen­er­al ac­cep­tance that the out­come of yes­ter­day’s polls ac­cu­rate­ly re­flect­ed the will of the peo­ple. This is be­cause the out­come con­fers on the in­com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion the le­git­i­ma­cy to gov­ern.

There are even greater chal­lenges to be con­front­ed by the elect­ed and ap­point­ed of­fi­cials who will make up the new cab­i­net and take up seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate.

As they take their oaths of of­fice, they should se­ri­ous­ly re­flect on the weight of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of serv­ing the peo­ple who vot­ed for them. In their ac­tions and de­ci­sions, they must be ac­count­able to the peo­ple, not just them­selves, their friends and fi­nanciers.

There is no place for nar­row po­lit­i­cal agen­das, no time for pro­tract­ed vic­to­ry cel­e­bra­tions, giv­en the many chal­lenges ahead for this na­tion.

Con­sid­er­able time and en­er­gy will have to be ded­i­cat­ed to T&T’s eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, bring­ing crime un­der con­trol and build­ing cli­mate re­silience.

The cam­paign is over. Time to shift from talk­ing to the dif­fi­cult task of gov­ern­ing with the aim of long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty for T&T.

On the eco­nom­ic front, there is the chal­lenge of stim­u­lat­ing an en­er­gy sec­tor that has been buf­fet­ed by de­clin­ing pro­duc­tion and price volatil­i­ty on glob­al mar­kets, boost­ing growth in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor and find­ing a so­lu­tion to the on­go­ing for­eign ex­change short­age.

The Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion that re­turned to pow­er in the Unit­ed States ear­li­er this year has al­ready up­end­ed promis­ing eco­nom­ic fore­casts, in­clud­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund’s (IMF) pro­jec­tion of 2.3 per cent for the T&T econ­o­my this year.

The in­tro­duc­tion of tar­iffs ear­li­er this month, with a base­line ten per cent du­ty on im­ports from this coun­try, is like­ly to af­fect key com­modi­ties such as am­mo­nia, methanol, iron and steel.

In ad­di­tion, ex­pec­ta­tions have been crushed for the de­vel­op­ment of Drag­on and oth­er cross-bor­der and near-bor­der Venezue­lan gas fields, name­ly Man­akin-Cocuina and Lo­ran Man­a­tee. There­fore, an im­me­di­ate and ur­gent search must be launched for vi­able op­tions for en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

These and oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions make the Min­istry of Fi­nance port­fo­lio par­tic­u­lar­ly weighty for the rep­re­sen­ta­tive who will take it up. How­ev­er, there is an even more dif­fi­cult as­sign­ment for the next na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, who must tack­le a homi­cide rate of 26 per 100,000 peo­ple, the record 624 mur­ders of 2024 and the af­ter­math of the re­cent­ly end­ed State of Emer­gency.

The bot­tom line is that there can be no hon­ey­moon for T&T’s new gov­ern­ment.

Man­i­festo promis­es made to the elec­torate must now be con­vert­ed in­to de­liv­er­ables and coun­try put be­fore par­ty for the com­mon good.

T&T must be the biggest win­ner in the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.