As it hap­pened, last Sat­ur­day’s Great Race 2026 win­ner, “Heat­wave,” was apt­ly named con­sid­er­ing El Ni­no’s 2026 scorcher weath­er—and po­lit­i­cal events, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Re­cent del­uges, how­ev­er, pre­viewed the rainy La Ni­na con­di­tions (such as oc­curred in 2022) pro­ject­ed to en­ter by mid-2027 post-Ni­no. It’s prompt­ed queries to Gov­ern­ment on how such large amounts of wa­ter could be har­nessed for T&T’s use—es­pe­cial­ly with pub­lic de­bate de­vel­op­ing on Gov­ern­ment’s planned da­ta cen­tres, which re­quire much wa­ter for cool­ing. There’s been no re­ply from Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath on fu­ture wa­ter op­ti­mi­sa­tion plans. But Gov­ern­ment’s sched­ule for the last months of 2026 is fill­ing up. As is the Op­po­si­tion PNM’s fol­low­ing out­break of is­sues.

Im­me­di­ate­ly ahead: test­ing the new In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade venue, pub­lic ac­com­mo­da­tion and re­quired an­swers from Gov­ern­ment on cost, con­trac­tor, et al. Sep­tem­ber Par­lia­ment re­sump­tion. State of Emer­gency (SoE) con­clu­sion. Post-SoE plans, whether in­volv­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions zones. A slew of le­gal mat­ters. Bud­get 2027’s liveli­hood theme and pack­age for 2027 promised land. Re­ac­tion. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar head­ing to the No­vem­ber Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in An­tigua.

Al­so ex­pect­ed: like­ly Sep­tem­ber date for Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Guev­er­ro’s first Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion re­view.

De­spite the No­vem­ber 2025 and Au­gust 2026 deaths of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) coun­cil­lors Romona Vic­to­ry (Siparia East/San Fran­cique South) and Vashti Sookhoo (Re­form/Man­a­ham­bre), re­spec­tive­ly, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, eye­ing funds for two by-elec­tions be­fore 2027 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls, said that may be un­like­ly and both seats may re­main va­cant un­til LG elec­tions.

The PNM’s LG nom­i­nee screen­ing is so far com­plet­ed for 80 per cent of UNC-held ar­eas. But now, amid con­stituen­cy elec­tions, PNM’s grap­pling with big­ger prob­lems be­yond the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) probe of Bal­isi­er House con­struc­tion, which places not on­ly the PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary un­der spot­light but al­so past of­fi­cials who had in­put on the project.

And: un­less re­solved soon, PNM, on re­turn to Par­lia­ment, faces Gov­ern­ment on the back foot over its lat­est is­sue—the clash in its San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy in­volv­ing MP Bri­an Man­ning’s bid to raise mem­bers’ is­sues con­cern­ing con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is.

Depth of the fis­sure was mea­sured by chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les’ Wednes­day as­sur­ances of ac­tion, Thurs­day’s ap­peals against pub­lic fight­ing—and hours af­ter that, ap­par­ent­ly un­heed­ing, the Alex­is-led SFE ex­ec­u­tive’s sting­ing at­tack on Man­ning, drag­ging his de­ceased fa­ther’s name in­to the mix.

If Man­ning’s vent on the way the probe of SFE con­stituen­cy is­sues was per­ceived as wrong, Alex­is’ dele­tion of Man­ning’s mes­sage from SFE’s chat group—sig­nalling her de­fence and that she’s in charge—is be­ing seen equal­ly.

It’s raised query on how ef­fec­tive­ly the probe re­port from the lead­er­ship in­ves­ti­gat­ing team on SFE’s is­sues “were act­ed up­on” (as Gon­za­les said it was) and if it em­pow­ered Alex­is’s ac­tion, which sig­nalled PNM’s SFE’s MP was banned from the chat group of the con­stituen­cy he rep­re­sents. An em­bar­rass­ment to the PNM.

Both Man­ning and Alex­is (PNM as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary af­ter gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings) have sup­port­ers. While some PNM of­fi­cials ex­press con­cern about Man­ning, oth­er PN­Mites—in­clud­ing like with yes­ter­day’s two res­ig­na­tions—sig­nal dif­fer­ent­ly.

The probe re­port is in its in­fan­cy stages, first be­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion of par­ty groups for SFE con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. The lat­ter, where Alex­is’ ex­ec­u­tive will be chal­lenged, will be the Wa­ter­loo of this bat­tle for con­trol of the SFE—and which could de­ter­mine po­lit­i­cal con­trol of the ex­ec­u­tive—once PNM’s strongest con­stituen­cy—in fu­ture elec­tions.

The UNC’s mon­i­tor­ing the is­sue keen­ly. Its mar­gin of de­feat in the 2025 gen­er­al polls—with UNC can­di­date John Michael Al­i­bo­cus—was much less than 2020. Some PN­Mites at­tribute this to the SFE’s di­vi­sions sim­mer­ing since then.

The is­sue’s vic­tims in­clude con­stituents, PNM’s pro­file—and leader Pen­ny Beck­les’. It’s the lat­est af­ter Janelle John-Bates’ Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee and Ari­ma may­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj’s UNC “ap­pear­ances,” where Beck­les’ ab­sence of fig­ure and has com­pound­ed neg­a­tive per­cep­tion about lead­er­ship abil­i­ty.

The 500-strong “PNM Voice” group has con­sis­tent­ly cri­tiqued per­for­mance. De­vel­op­ment diplo­mat/strate­gic ad­vis­er Pearce Robin­son says if Beck­les fails to bring the SFE mat­ter to or­der, he’d have no choice but to ask her to re­sign im­me­di­ate­ly.

Gov­ern­ment’s great­est strength re­sides with the PNM’s weak­ness. How­ev­er PNM con­cre­tis­es its in­ter­nal foun­da­tions, its LG elec­tion test will pro­vide more chal­lenges if it doesn’t. And more po­lit­i­cal “heat.”