Whether in the Sen­ate or House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which each met yes­ter­day—with heavy ver­bal bat­tle in the House and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) un­der siege in the Sen­ate—Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion faced each oth­er with a new, hard­er at­ti­tude.

All geared for the sec­ond year. This, af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment’s an­niver­sary of its April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry—and yes­ter­day’s first an­niver­sary of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ap­point­ment on May 1, 2025.

Both, plus her team’s one-year an­niver­sary to­mor­row—marked by the PM’s re­cent state­ment that some team mem­bers need more ad­vice than oth­ers—clear the way for the con­clu­sion of the First ses­sion of the 13th Par­lia­ment. That be­gan May 23, 2025. The sec­ond ses­sion’s ex­pect­ed to start around May 23. Be­fore that, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ex­pect the 2026 Bud­get re­view, ap­prox­i­mate­ly mid-month.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo by now would have min­istries’ in­for­ma­tion on what’s nec­es­sary—be­yond al­lo­ca­tions from the $59.2 bil­lion Bud­get—to reach the fis­cal year end­ing in Sep­tem­ber.

Be­yond the deficit up­date, the pop­u­la­tion needs word on plans to han­dle the con­tin­u­ing fall­out from the Mid­dle East war. Tan­coo holds the task of de­tail­ing just how the UNC’s “Bet­ter Days Are Com­ing” theme ma­te­ri­alis­es af­ter word of his work with the CPO for fur­ther in­creased salaries, more jobs and eco­nom­ic growth.

Themes from the PM and last Sat­ur­day’s UNC Con­gress speak­ers—“Brighter Days Ahead,” Bear With Us,” “Stay the Course with us,” etc, ac­knowl­edged fail­ure on de­liv­ery.

Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John, stress­ing “Bet­ter days are here!” al­so con­veyed need to re­tain mem­bers - re­mind­ing how hard the fight was to reach Gov­ern­ment. Plus: “We have to win the next elec­tion - Lo­cal (Gov­ern­ment) com­ing up! We go­ing to rev up the econ­o­my!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s promis­es were ac­com­pa­nied by hon­esty (ad­mit­ting much to be done), boasts (achieve­ments), play­ing to emo­tions (re­mind­ing one day she “won’t be here”) - and spin (rain on UNC’s pa­rade were “show­ers of bless­ing”); 2025 yel­low Poui (pro­mot­ing the UNC’s suc­cess, when 2026 Poui is large­ly pink).

At­ten­dance—mi­nus URP and CEPEP work­ers—show­cased the UNC’s mo­bil­i­sa­tion skill, sup­port and LG elec­tion po­ten­tial. But af­ter a year in Gov­ern­ment, UNC’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests was one short on stage with an ab­sent Con­gress of the Peo­ple, though Per­sad-Bisses­sar held hands with the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion leader (af­ter PSA ob­tained promised $$$) and OW­TU’s (await­ing re­fin­ery stake).

The PM’s pow­er of per­sua­sion fal­tered when she re­sort­ed to the same “Hold Strain” ap­peal which for­mer PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley did in his term, of which the-then Op­po­si­tion UNC was con­temp­tu­ous. Ralph Maraj, in Feb­ru­ary 2025, bouffed, “Af­ter this decade of dark­ness, you had the au­dac­i­ty to tell the na­tion ‘hold strain un­til 2027’, Man­a­tee gas com­ing ...”

Now, UNC’s await­ing 2027 for the same en­er­gy gains.

With Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warn­ing to crit­ics about tak­ing their “whole head if they came for her eye,” it’s ahead what lead­er­ship ex­am­ple that sets for re­duc­ing vi­o­lence, where Gov­ern­ment’s strug­gling with T&T’s crime prob­lem. And what those words say about ac­tu­al strength. Min­is­ter Phillip Alexan­der’s cel­e­bra­tion of her state­ment and im­plied “…FAFO” (sic) used US De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­ter Hegseth’s 2025 warn­ing: “To our en­e­mies: FAFO (F... Around and Find Out”). Ap­par­ent­ly, it’s UNC’s cre­do now.

Any PNM mileage from MP Stu­art Young’s vis­it with Act­ing Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez —when Gov­ern­ment’s diplo­mat­ic mis­sion to Venezuela re­mains a “work in progress”—was coun­tered by yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate is­sue con­cern­ing PNM sen­a­tors Janelle John-Bates and Faris Al-Rawi and John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion of­fer.

The im­broglio’s been a mi­nus for the PNM, now plus a new To­ba­go leader. The high­er (1,228) num­ber of votes Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis re­ceived—dou­bling the 2022 poll win­ner’s—spoke to dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship-led To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and PN­Mites’ moves to stand up.

To­ba­go PN­Mites said the 11,000-mem­ber­ship list re­ceived 500 new mem­bers, which is ex­pect­ed to have aid­ed Cud­joe-Lewis. Eight mem­bers of de­feat­ed can­di­date Kelvon Mor­ris’ team, how­ev­er, won top ex­ec­u­tive posts of the to­tal 17, but they pledged to sup­port her work.

It’s ahead whether Cud­joe-Lewis em­ploys a uni­fi­ca­tion style/ap­proach, since some yes­ter­day not­ed things she’d said dur­ing cam­paign­ing—and if her sup­port from some 2021 THA As­sem­bly­men will as­sist. With a four-year term end­ing, she’s ex­pect­ed to lead To­ba­go PNM in­to elec­tions.