The chal­lenge of hav­ing a pro­duc­tive and pro­gres­sive par­lia­men­tary gov­ern­ment starts in earnest on Fri­day, with the open­ing of the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. While the elect­ed Gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), with its as­so­ci­at­ed coali­tion mem­bers, has been in­stalled and work­ing over the last cou­ple weeks, the Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da will be­gin to take shape when the Par­lia­ment opens.

While Fri­day’s cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing is not one at which any de­ci­sions of state will be tak­en, it has great util­i­tar­i­an val­ue in that it for­mal­ly opens the door for the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) to take their seats in the law-mak­ing body, strik­ing a se­ri­ous note to the coun­try that the new five-year term has be­gun.

While the tra­di­tion of the Pres­i­dent read­ing out the busi­ness of the Gov­ern­ment in at least the com­ing term has not been give life in the re­cent past, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is ex­pect­ed to have a few se­ri­ous words to the Mem­bers of the Par­lia­ment, in re­spect of what she and the pop­u­la­tion ex­pects of them about run­ning a coun­try faced with many and enor­mous prob­lems.

So, while Fri­day’s open­ing is cer­e­mo­ni­al in na­ture, it nev­er­the­less marks the spot and should in­di­cate how se­ri­ous­ly the Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion and the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors in the Up­per House in­tend to car­ry out the peo­ple’s busi­ness. This is a time­ly re­minder to all mem­bers that this Par­lia­ment does not be­long to them to do as they please but rather is the leg­isla­tive cham­ber in which the busi­ness of the peo­ple should be se­ri­ous­ly tak­en.

The Par­lia­ment’s open­ing al­so sig­ni­fies a change of gov­ern­ment on yet an­oth­er oc­ca­sion in the par­lia­men­tary life of Trinidad and To­ba­go. More­over, this has been achieved with­out the slight­est sense of ques­tion as one par­ty is moved out of gov­ern­ment and an­oth­er vot­ed in by the peo­ple of the Re­pub­lic. It’s a feat which sev­er­al large, fi­nan­cial­ly and mil­i­tar­i­ly strong coun­tries in sev­er­al parts of the world have prob­lems with un­der­tak­ing.

The re­al chal­lenge now is for the Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion and the Sen­ate mem­bers ap­point­ed by the par­ties and Her Ex­cel­len­cy to cut the ole talk and get down to the busi­ness for which they are put there.

Hav­ing made de­fin­i­tive de­ci­sions about which par­ty should lead and which must shoul­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for pro­gres­sive op­po­si­tion, the elect­ed and se­lect­ed mem­bers must dis­play the pro­duc­tive habits for suc­cess those who vot­ed them in­to of­fice are ex­pect­ing.

The open­ing of the Par­lia­ment is al­so a sig­nal that the road back for the de­feat­ed PNM, which has been in gov­ern­ment of­fice for 11 of the 16 oc­ca­sions af­ter gen­er­al elec­tions, has be­gun.

The tra­di­tion of the Pres­i­dent giv­ing an in­di­ca­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da in­to the fu­ture has gone out of fash­ion. How­ev­er, the al­ready es­tab­lished cus­tom of Her Ex­cel­len­cy rais­ing the pop­u­la­tion’s high ex­pec­ta­tions of the gov­ern­ment and be­ing proac­tive in her telling the gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion that these needs are great, can be ex­pect­ed to be re­peat­ed. There is no time for a hon­ey­moon in the Par­lia­ment.