Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

In the out­go­ing Chi­nese cal­en­dar Year of the Drag­on, when crime man­age­ment was again the bane of Gov­ern­ment and a boon for the Op­po­si­tion’s bat­tles, it was al­so a year of oth­er drag­on-sized chal­lenges for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

The year end­ed with the death of sit­ting PNM D’abadie/ O’Meara MP and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, her youngest son Je­si­ah and daugh­ter Xi­anne in a fire at their Ari­ma home.

To­day, we com­plete the year in re­view on the po­lit­i­cal front in T&T for 2024.

JU­LY

• Op­po­si­tion UNC vot­ed with Gov­ern­ment to pass the Bail Amend­ment bill, which the UNC hadn’t sup­port­ed in 2022.

• Law passed to de­clare the steel­pan T&T’s na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment.

• For­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath sur­faces at a UNC Bud­get con­sul­ta­tion, an­nounc­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar called him and they had re­con­nect­ed af­ter years of dis­tance and cold­ness af­ter he sought the lead­er­ship twice. He agreed on her out­reach and by Oc­to­ber with­drew le­gal ac­tion he had against her on al­leged re­marks she made about him. But up to De­cem­ber, there was no word on if Bharath would get to con­test the St Au­gus­tine seat he once held or what role he’d play.

• Op­po­si­tion ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of mes­sages be­tween for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Stu­art Young and then-po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith seek­ing to en­sure a Firearms User’s Li­cence for To­ba­go busi­ness­man Al­lan Warn­er.

• PM ap­point­ed Min­is­ter in the OPM/En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to act as Prime Min­is­ter when PM at­tend­ed the Cari­com Sum­mit and in the ab­sence from T&T of Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who was usu­al­ly ap­point­ed to act.

AU­GUST

• PM con­tin­ued ap­point­ing Young to act as PM on an­oth­er oc­ca­sion - even with Im­bert in T&T - and fur­ther oc­ca­sions when he left T&T ... thus launch­ing ques­tions from some PNM quar­ters, in­clud­ing some with no posts - of so-called “Black Cau­cus” je­fes eye­ing the lead­er­ship rather than any young as­pi­rant.

• With one year to go be­fore gen­er­al elec­tion -an­a­lysts gave both the PNM Gov­ern­ment and UNC Op­po­si­tion bad marks.

• UNC served no­tice that cam­paign­ing would start in Sep­tem­ber.

• PNM launched calls for nom­i­nees for Op­po­si­tion- held ar­eas - and by Oc­to­ber had 19 cam­paign­ing in the UNC ar­eas—main­ly busi­ness/pro­fes­sion­als, some with for­mer UNC back­ground.

• Trib­utes flowed from Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans for for­mer NAR Min­is­ter Dr Em­manuel Ho­sein, who died.

SEP­TEM­BER

• PM un­der­took two weeks of med­ical tests in the US but did not give any pub­lic up­date on his health is­sues.

• The term’s last year of Par­lia­ment start­ed with UNC’s hi­er­ar­chy pelt­ing the dis­si­dents low­er down the bench - shift­ing Rod­ney Charles and Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne from their re­spec­tive seats next to and be­hind Per­sad-Bisses­sar to low­er down the bench along­side Paray, Rag­bir and Ram­bal­ly.

• PM ad­vised T&T to hold the fort since the year, un­til the sec­ond quar­ter of 2027, would be a pe­ri­od of dif­fi­cul­ty for peo­ple un­til new gas pro­duc­tion.

• UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal’s defama­tion case against Row­ley was dis­missed, with the judge say­ing PM was en­gag­ing in “loose talk” and “ole talk,” which was part of T&T’s na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal cul­ture.

• Crime hit home in Gov­ern­ment, af­ter ban­dits “boost­ed” the Beyra of Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh while he was lim­ing out­side a bar in his con­stituen­cy.

• PNM Sen­a­tor Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing re­signed from the Sen­ate fol­low­ing do­mes­tic is­sue rev­e­la­tions in­volv­ing her hus­band.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned of an “elec­tion bud­get.” Im­bert’s 2025 Bud­get—for an elec­tion year- though not short, at­tempt­ed to be a sweet pitch­ing of in­creas­es and of­fer­ings of such for cer­tain sec­tors.

• Ex-sen­a­tor and Tapia ad­vo­cate Ham­let Joseph dies.

OC­TO­BER

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar rub­bished Im­bert’s Bud­get as “zip, na­da, zilch” and pro­duced her man­i­festo plans.

• There was ex­tra strong Bud­get de­bate for a pre-elec­tion year, where the five es­tranged UNC MPs’ con­tri­bu­tions were telling of their po­si­tions in the par­ty and what they ex­pect­ed their fu­tures to be. Swan­song notes were al­so heard from Im­bert and Row­ley – but one-time PNM MP Amery Browne hint­ed at a pos­si­ble re­turn as an MP.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the PM of plan­ning to en­gage in “fete­ing” cost­ing $50 mil­lion in 2024. PM rub­bished that, say­ing he was very fru­gal and the on­ly State funds he had per­son­al­ly re­ceived was his salary—and he’d been “skimpy” with for­eign trav­el.

• Ex-PNM sen­a­tor Cyn­thia Al­fred died.

• PNM’s heat­ed Oc­to­ber 19 Gen­er­al Coun­cil saw lines drawn be­tween lead­er­ship and ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and Fos­ter Cum­mings- with ex­ter­nal sup­port from ex-min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte—on the post­pone­ment of • PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tion and the PM’s “mixed mes­sages” on his lead­er­ship sit­u­a­tion. The PM lat­er al­lud­ed to Le Hunte as “play­ing se­nior coun­sel” and ques­tioned why one per­son was be­ing treat­ed as a “bell­wether.” Bap­tiste-Primus la­belled the PM’s ex­pla­na­tions on the post­pone­ment as “too con­vo­lut­ed.”

• UNC’s Per­sad-Bisses­sar jumped in­to PNM’s “busi­ness” bash­ing Cum­mings and Le Hunte—and Young.

• Es­tranged MP Rod­ney Charles calls Per­sad-Bisses­sar out on late UNC screen­ing

NO­VEM­BER

• UNC an­nounced the start of screen­ing.

• The re­vised Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (120th) re­port eval­u­at­ing month­ly earn­ings of 206 of­fices rec­om­mend­ed 93.3 per cent of the pool re­ceive a wage in­crease. It was es­ti­mat­ed to cost more than $150 mil­lion in back­pay for 118 of the of­fices re­viewed - in­clud­ing pay hike for a PM from $59,0000 to $87,000, yield­ing $1m in back­pay and a sim­i­lar amount for the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

• The SRC rec­om­men­da­tions came as unions clashed with Gov­ern­ment on ne­go­ti­a­tions, in­clud­ing port and T&TEC work­ers, pi­lots and WIGUT, whose back­pay alone would cost $701M.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ject­ed the SRC salary hike pro­pos­als, ex­cept for judges and pub­lic ser­vants. PM said Gov­ern­ment would ac­cept the rec­om­men­da­tions.

• The OW­TU “fired” the PM with a flame torch protest out­side Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre on the eve of the sixth an­niver­sary of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery’s clo­sure—and no in­vestor in sight de­spite 10 bid­ders and three short­list­ed. Es­tranged UNC MPs joined unions for protest out­side of White­hall against in­creas­es.

• The Cari­com Sum­mit with In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di pro­duced po­ten­tial for di­ver­si­fy­ing trade and agree­ment on agro and food pro­cess­ing. The Cari­com se­cu­ri­ty meet­ing pro­duced im­mi­nent roll­out of a Caribbean-wide gangs data­base and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Cari­com Ar­rest War­rant Bill, pre­vent­ing safe har­bour for crim­i­nals re­gion­al­ly.

• For­mer PNM Laven­tille West MP NiLe­ung Hy­po­lite died; for­mer In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Harold Ramkissoon died.

• Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s TTP opened nom­i­na­tions for elec­tion and screen­ing

DE­CEM­BER

• The PM met with a US del­e­ga­tion in Bar­ba­dos.

• UNC’s first three can­di­dates an­nounced, in­clud­ing Dr Michael Dowlat for the key mar­gin­al San Fer­nan­do West seat.

• PNM screened for 15 PNM-held ar­eas and re­turned 12 in­cum­bents. - Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds with­drew his nom­i­na­tion (and at­tor­ney Ka­reem Mar­celle was cho­sen there). Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce opts out due to per­son­al is­sues. Laven­tille East was man­dat­ed to get more nom­i­nees by De­cem­ber 20, along with La Brea, whose in­cum­bent Stephen McLashie wasn’t ap­proved.

• Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell sought La Brea nom­i­na­tion, along with con­stituen­cy chair­man Jer­mel Pierre. To­ba­go East and West’s in­cum­bents were al­so sub­mit­ted the same day as Laven­tille East’s.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claims on the To­ba­go air­port ter­mi­nal projects drew Im­bert out – twice. While he ad­mit­ted Gov­ern­ment was pay­ing more than ex­pect­ed, he said it was nowhere near the half a bil­lion dol­lars she al­leged but was TT$16.9M.

• To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills were de­feat­ed due to a lack of Op­po­si­tion sup­port. THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine slammed Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach and dubbed the PM a “house slave” ig­nor­ing To­ba­go’s needs. Groups ver­bal­ly clout­ed Far­ley’s lan­guage. IDA did the same on “Far­ley’s Fail­ure” but slammed Gov­ern­ment and sup­port­ed UNC on the bills.

• At the last sit­ting of Par­lia­ment for the year, MPs ap­proved the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tion for 16 con­stituen­cy bound­ary shifts and five con­stituen­cy name changes in its draft or­der, paving the way for elec­tions in 2024. PM an­nounced that Cari­com elec­tion ob­servers were be­ing in­vit­ed to the gen­er­al elec­tion.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar end­ed the year with screen­ing for five more seats but al­so un­veiled a new coali­tion with the PSA, OW­TU, PEP, MND and COP – and in­vit­ed HOPE to talks. She blanked NTA’s Grif­fith, height­en­ing the war with him. But the COP’s chair­man lat­er said he wasn’t aware of any agree­ment or al­liance and that the par­ty had learned from its past short­com­ings and en­deav­oured to get it right.

• A day af­ter Gov­ern­ment MPs gath­ered in joy at the Prime Min­is­ter’s Christ­mas par­ty, the team gath­ered in sor­row and sad­ness hung over T&T fol­low­ing the trag­ic deaths of D’Abadie/O’Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren in an ear­ly morn­ing fire at their Ari­ma home. A dev­as­tat­ed Prime Min­is­ter, who wept co­pi­ous­ly, said it was one of the “sad­dest days” of his life. The par­ty’s deep grief was heard in Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is’ gut-wrench­ing screams to God. Min­is­ters’ tears flowed and there were con­do­lences across par­ty lines. Probes were mount­ed and Mor­ris-Ju­lian was hailed as a hero for try­ing to res­cue her chil­dren. Neigh­bours were haunt­ed by the vic­tims’ dy­ing screams. Gov­ern­ment of­fered a state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al.

• At Kam­la’s fo­rum on the night of the tragedy, UNC speak­ers all pro­claimed the par­ty would win the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

• UNC’s coali­tion part­ner, PEP leader Phillip Alexan­der’s acer­bic state­ments about the Mor­ris-Ju­lian deaths and Gov­ern­ment drew crit­i­cism, while UNC coali­tion part­ner, JTUM leader An­cel Ro­get’s labour en­ti­ty de­cried peo­ple us­ing the deaths as a plat­form for blame. And Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t en­dorse PEP leader Alexan­der’s talk on the emo­tion shown by Robin­son-Reg­is ei­ther.

• As the UNC screened for St Joseph, San Fer­nan­do East and To­co, Per­sad-Bisses­sar got more plat­form fod­der af­ter AG Regi­nald Ar­mour and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox blamed a pub­lic ser­vant’s er­ror in the in­ser­tion cri­te­ri­on in a pen­sions bill that would have seen cit­i­zens with sav­ings of $25,000 be­ing dis­qual­i­fied for Se­nior Cit­i­zens’ Pen­sion. It was an­nounced the bill’s be­ing with­drawn.

• Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed Jack Warn­er’s ap­peals to be part of UNC moves and sig­nalled UNC wouldn’t have can­di­dates in To­ba­go - where the PNM will be fight­ing TPP, PDP and IDA. Ex-MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al wait­ed for word on her of­fer to Per­sad-Bisses­sar to be a mar­gin­al seat can­di­date. Ram­di­al, ex-min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine and for­mer PP faces re­turned for UNC’s last 2024 pub­lic meet­ing at its Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters, where the mood was cel­e­bra­to­ry in an­tic­i­pa­tion of win­ning Gov­ern­ment.

• Ex-COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har re­turned as in­ter­im COP leader, fol­low­ing in­ter­im leader Kirt Sin­nette’s res­ig­na­tion - where COP en­tered a “Pro­gres­sive Al­liance Net­work” with HOPE and NTA. HOPE em­pha­sised NTA’s Gary Grif­fith must be part of any arrange­ment to link with UNC. But COP’s in­ter­im chair­man Lons­dale Williams stressed that nei­ther COP’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive nor na­tion­al coun­cil met to en­dorse the ap­point­ment of an in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader, as per Ar­ti­cles 17 and 18 of COP’s con­sti­tu­tion. Ra­mad­har is­sued a state­ment say­ing that “these mat­ters” were be­ing dealt with “in­ter­nal­ly.”

• Gov­ern­ment an­nounced a Par­lia­men­tary cau­cus re­treat in To­ba­go from Jan­u­ary 5-6, 2025.

• On De­cem­ber 30, the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion called a three-month State of Emer­gency - with lim­it­ed con­di­tions to af­fect move­ment and gath­er­ings - fol­low­ing height­ened gang­land killings and TTPS in­for­ma­tion of reprisal at­tacks that could af­fect pub­lic safe­ty.