The rain came, and so did they. Per­sis­tent protest­ing, push­ing on through the light show­ers, Black Stal­in’s Suf­fer­ers pow­er­ing them on, one mes­sage on the col­lec­tive mind— im­prove­ment.

As To­ba­go pre­pared to let off steam with Car­ni­val, trade unions in yes­ter­day’s march in Trinidad did the same - 18 months and as­sort­ed ob­ser­va­tions, ex­pe­ri­ences and con­cerns lat­er, were un­furled. Out­side the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice on St Clair Boule­vard, mem­bers shout­ed the same slo­gans they had dur­ing protests in Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment days “XYX hid­ing in the build­ing.” As the crowd lin­gered around the OPM, Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette urged par­tic­i­pants to con­tin­ue mov­ing. “The po­lice said this is a march. Let’s move.”

Mon­day’s Gov­ern­ment an­nounce­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s in­struc­tions for im­me­di­ate con­clu­sion of ne­go­ti­a­tions with named bar­gain­ing units didn’t dis­tract from union is­sues—nor de­tract from turnout. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh, an­nounc­ing the con­clu­sion, laud­ed pub­lic ser­vants, who a week ago were warned by the PM about lazi­ness.

Tim­ing of the Prime Min­is­ter’s pep talk-cum ap­pre­ci­a­tion ad­dress to T&T Po­lice Ser­vice top brass at their Di­vali func­tion on Thurs­day and diplo­mat­ic corps’ own that evening al­so - eve of the march - was in­struc­tive on strength­en­ing Gov­ern­ment’s pro­file ahead of the pub­lic show­ing.

The PM had al­ready poured cold wa­ter—be­yond yes­ter­day’s sprin­kles—on the march with her un­con­vinc­ing claim of “protests—on­ly-un­der-In­di­an PMs.” Re­ac­tion and race card were un­sur­pris­ing giv­en re­torts the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s been em­ploy­ing.

Sig­nif­i­cant among re­cent mat­ters is the PM’s show­down with the Di­vali Na­gar’s Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC). A dis­grace­ful sit­u­a­tion with po­ten­tial to throw a damper on T&T’s beloved Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions and the in­sti­tu­tion of the Na­gar. The core is­sue of the with­draw­al of state agen­cies’ fund­ing snow­balled in­to myr­i­ad oth­er an­gles as a mus­cle-flex­ing PM and Na­gar man­age­ment—fac­ing its own in­ter­nal pres­sures from cer­tain of the 25 board mem­bers—clashed.

Gov­ern­ment lead­er­ship out of the is­sue was stymied by the el­e­ment of a vendet­ta, un­lim­it­ed to Blue Wa­ters’ ap­par­ent ten­ant­i­ng of space tot­ed with­in the PM’s mind.

The spec­ta­cle had oc­curred in the pre-Di­vali fast­ing pe­ri­od—and Kar­tik, as of Wednes­day—sham­ing com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, in­clud­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) loy­al­ists, and rais­ing queries about re­spect for Hin­duism’s holy teach­ings on for­give­ness and uni­ty. It prompt­ed some for­mer UNC min­is­ters to de­cry what’s hap­pened, tak­ing is­sue with the PM’s pot­shots politi­cis­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

Nev­er­the­less: the col­umn’s con­firmed that em­bat­tled NCIC chair­man Dr Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo has the re­main­ing board mem­bers’ loy­al­ty and sup­port—and he has no in­ten­tion of step­ping down.

Among lin­ger­ing ques­tions was ex­act­ly why the is­sue was drawn out in­to at­tacks, ac­cu­sa­tions and “beat down” when Gov­ern­ment’s ear­ly dis­clo­sure and ap­proval of NCIC’s $500,000 ap­pli­ca­tion might have pre­vent­ed di­min­ish­ing of the fes­ti­val and faith.

The UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion has shown it knows how to go along to get along. Gov­ern­ment’s vote against re­mov­ing the Unit­ed States’ em­bar­go on Cu­ba was the on­ly one in op­po­si­tion to sev­en oth­er Cari­com states, who main­tained Cari­com’s po­si­tion on the is­sue. Six oth­ers ei­ther ab­stained or were ab­sent.

When the US took is­sue on Tues­day with T&T’s re­duced fund­ing for hu­man traf­fick­ing pre­ven­tion/vic­tim pro­tec­tion, the next day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has­tened, meet­ing a US del­e­ga­tion to dis­cuss traf­fick­ing in per­sons, chal­lenges as­so­ci­at­ed with this and “op­por­tu­ni­ties for con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion to ad­dress this.”

It’s ahead how Tues­day’s US elec­tion af­fects Gov­ern­ment’s main­stay Re­pub­li­can part­ner amid US pro­jec­tions of a blue De­mo­c­ra­t­ic “wave” in polls—which could af­fect move­ment of poli­cies, plans and part­ner­ships.

An in­censed Je­re­mie al­so showed his leader’s war lin­go in Mon­day’s clash, ac­cus­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira of sit­ting on his “der­riere” af­ter Viera called out Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors’ lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty on their 2027 Bud­get. In­deed, it’s per­ceived that the PM’s “PR stunt” ac­cu­sa­tion against Blue Wa­ter in the NCIC is­sue was a Freudi­an slip re­gard­ing the Bud­get, whose “More to come” tagline has al­so been viewed in some quar­ters as an in­di­rect con­ces­sion of a va­pid pack­age.

Yes­ter­day’s test by the unions—and the Op­po­si­tion PNM, which par­tic­i­pat­ed—may be the first, leav­ing the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion no room for “long games” or po­lit­i­cal chess-board­ing in T&T’s re­al-world sce­nario.