Mick­ela Pan­day's re­ju­ve­na­tion of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front ahead of a gen­er­al elec­tion con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due next year, is in­trigu­ing to say the least.

The well-known daugh­ter of the late Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) founder, Bas­deo Pan­day, who has been rid­ing a wave of re­newed pop­u­lar­i­ty since Mr Pan­day's pass­ing in Jan­u­ary, has an­nounced her in­ten­tion to field a full slate of 41 can­di­dates when­ev­er the elec­tion bell rings.

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal tongues are al­ready wag­ging in and out­side of the UNC about the Pan­day lega­cy and whether Mick­ela will ul­ti­mate­ly find a place back home with­in the op­po­si­tion par­ty.

Like her fa­ther whom she revered, Ms Pan­day was nev­er far from pol­i­tics. When she was elect­ed as the Oropouche West MP in 2007, many in the par­ty viewed her as the fu­ture face of the UNC.

But those hopes were quick­ly dashed af­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar took over the lead­er­ship of the UNC in Jan­u­ary 2010.

Ms Pan­day was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly re­placed in short or­der by Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine as the UNC can­di­date for Oropouche West in the May 24, 2010, Gen­er­al Elec­tion, which the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship won.

At the time, Ms Pan­day had main­tained that she was be­ing vic­timised be­cause she was a Pan­day and that Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar was seek­ing to sup­press the Pan­day po­lit­i­cal lega­cy in a bid to es­tab­lish her own.

How­ev­er, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar's con­tention was that Mr Pan­day could no longer lead the UNC to vic­to­ry at the polls, and that fresh blood was need­ed.

Giv­en this back­drop, Ms Pan­day’s re­turn to ac­tive pol­i­tics is sig­nif­i­cant, com­ing at a time when the ta­bles have turned on Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is now the one fight­ing to de­fend her lead­er­ship against those who be­lieve she can no longer lead the par­ty to vic­to­ry at the polls.

While Ms Pan­day has so far de­nied claims that she is in talks with Rush­ton Paray, who is lead­ing the charge for change in the UNC, we look for­ward with bat­ed breath to the out­come of the par­ty's up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions, since it ap­pears some mem­bers of the par­ty are too dis­en­chant­ed with Per­sad-Bisses­sar's lead­er­ship to con­tin­ue to of­fer her their sup­port head­ing in­to next year's na­tion­al poll.

For those in the UNC who be­lieve that Paray and his fac­tion are not a vi­able al­ter­na­tive to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Ms Pan­day could very well be the nec­es­sary link be­tween the old and the new.

This all makes for a very in­ter­est­ing road ahead to the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

How­ev­er, Pan­day’s daugh­ter or not, Mick­ela must still prove her­self as a suit­able leader for T&T and con­vince the elec­torate that her Pa­tri­ot­ic Front has more to of­fer them than ei­ther the UNC or the in­cum­bent PNM.

More now than ever, with T&T clam­our­ing for non-tra­di­tion­al re­spons­es to press­ing na­tion­al is­sues, she must demon­strate she has the met­tle to stand on her own, which is eas­i­er said than done.

T&T's po­lit­i­cal grave­yard is lit­tered with oth­er sig­nif­i­cant cam­paign­ers who once showed promise on­ly to be oblit­er­at­ed by the main two par­ties.

How Ms Pan­day nav­i­gates the ghosts of her past to craft a new and vi­able po­lit­i­cal fu­ture for her­self and her fol­low­ers, will de­ter­mine the suc­cess of her mis­sion.