Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his Gov­ern­ment have os­ten­si­bly moved in­to the elec­tion prepa­ra­tion mode, based on his re­cent ap­pear­ances and state­ments at three pro­posed con­struc­tion sites ap­prox­i­mate­ly 18 months be­fore con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due gen­er­al elec­tions.

The Prime Min­is­ter is al­so send­ing sig­nals through his ap­point­ment of some­thing ap­proach­ing a Con­sti­tu­tion re­form com­mis­sion. In a dif­fer­ent fash­ion, his con­stant ef­forts to set­tle the bur­den of crime on the shoul­ders of dys­func­tion­al par­ents and a T&T Po­lice Ser­vice which has not been able to root out crim­i­nal gangs, are al­so a means of telling elec­tors don’t stain their fin­gers against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment for ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty when they go to the polls.

The con­struc­tion of the new Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices head­quar­ters at Tra­garete Road and Vic­to­ria Av­enue, and the de­vel­op­ment of a home for the dis­placed in the city, are projects to send the mes­sage of a car­ing gov­ern­ment.

The Prime Min­is­ter un­der­lined his con­cern by in­di­cat­ing there were oth­er in­ter­ests seek­ing the plot of land on which the min­istry’s of­fice is be­ing con­struct­ed—the sub­lim­i­nal sig­nal be­ing that peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those un­able to cope and liv­ing on the mar­gins, are high in his Gov­ern­ment’s con­sid­er­a­tions.

So too did Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley sig­nal his Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts at self-suf­fi­cien­cy with re­gard to hous­ing its of­fices and, more im­por­tant­ly, an at­tempt to cut back on the hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars now paid in rental of pri­vate of­fice space.

The im­age of a Gov­ern­ment, ready to work in the best in­ter­est of those on the low­est rungs of so­ci­ety, is be­ing cre­at­ed.

At the for­mer Cit­rus Grow­ers site in John John, Laven­tille, that com­mu­ni­ty of great cre­ativ­i­ty and an un­yield­ing sup­port base of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, once the cho­sen con­stituen­cy of par­ty founder and prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley ad­dressed the re­quire­ment for a long-need­ed com­mu­ni­ty in­fra­struc­ture up­lift. The promise of jobs and ul­ti­mate­ly an at­tempt to tack­le the squalor of the area, were all care­ful­ly wrapped in the gen­er­al elec­tion pack­age of the Prime Min­is­ter.

The ap­pear­ance at that cer­e­mo­ny of two folk and sport­ing he­roes, Bri­an Lara and Rus­sell Lat­apy, must sure­ly have added to Mr Row­ley’s ef­fort to sig­nal gen­uine con­cern. He, how­ev­er, could not re­sist a per­son­al de­light in his ref­er­ence to a golf course, notwith­stand­ing the pres­ence of foot­ball and crick­et­ing gi­ants.

It has been clever po­lit­i­cal cam­paign­ing of the Prime Min­is­ter, who has been in the trench­es over decades and en­gaged in many such suc­cess­ful bat­tles.

There are those who have as­sessed the elec­tion-type ac­tiv­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly the Op­po­si­tion Leader and her par­ty, as an in­di­ca­tion of an ear­ly gen­er­al elec­tion be­fore the Sep­tem­ber 2025 con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due time frame.

How­ev­er, the list­ed con­struc­tion projects have long ges­ta­tion pe­ri­ods ahead. What the ad­ver­tis­ing of them at this time does is to promise jobs over the months and years to come.

The in­escapable con­clu­sion is that the Prime Min­is­ter is teas­ing the Op­po­si­tion in­to ex­haust­ing it­self and re­sources in pre­ma­ture prepa­ra­tions and spend­ing.