Ar­guably, the phrase "be­twixt and be­tween" best de­scribes the coun­try's cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. The phrase is an old Eng­lish id­iom that orig­i­nat­ed in the 16th cen­tu­ry. It de­scribes a state of un­cer­tain­ty, am­bi­gu­i­ty, or be­ing in an in­ter­me­di­ate or tran­si­tion­al state, a state of be­ing nei­ther in one place nor an­oth­er, nei­ther in one con­di­tion nor an­oth­er.

A gen­er­al elec­tion is due in one year. Re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, there are on­ly two po­lit­i­cal par­ties that stand a chance of form­ing the next gov­ern­ment, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. Both par­ties are well known to the elec­torate and have held the reins of gov­ern­ment be­fore. There is no ev­i­dence that the small­er par­ties pos­sess ei­ther the grav­i­tas or the lead­er­ship to form a coali­tion that could present a mean­ing­ful chal­lenge to the sta­tus quo. The Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion un­seat­ed the PNM in 1986 af­ter 30 un­bro­ken years in of­fice. NAR re­mained in of­fice un­til 1991 when it too was vot­ed out. The PNM was vot­ed in­to of­fice from 1991 to 1995.

Since then, the UNC was in gov­ern­ment for 11 years, con­sist­ing of two spells (1995-2001 and 2010-2015). In 2001, the UNC was forced to call an ear­ly elec­tion as the par­ty was frac­tured by in­ter­nal dis­sen­sion.

The PNM formed the gov­ern­ment cu­mu­la­tive­ly for close to 20 years (2001-2010, 2015–present), al­though it too had a short three-year term, call­ing ear­ly elec­tion in 2010 and los­ing to the UNC in the process.

UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions were held yes­ter­day, and up to the time of writ­ing, the cur­rent leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, was ex­pect­ed to re­tain the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader. The PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tions are due lat­er this year. There is no ev­i­dence that the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal leader will re­sign or that a chal­lenge to his lead­er­ship will emerge.

Both po­lit­i­cal par­ties and their re­spec­tive po­lit­i­cal lead­ers who have held lead­er­ship roles for the last 14 years are known quan­ti­ties. There will be no sur­pris­es in their ap­proach to pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tion. The coun­try’s chal­lenges are not go­ing away ei­ther. Eco­nom­ic per­for­mance re­mains de­pen­dent on the en­er­gy sec­tor. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, as a ma­ture hy­dro­car­bon pro­duc­er, oil and nat­ur­al out­put are in sec­u­lar de­cline. De­spite the hype, the bid rounds have not gen­er­at­ed the in­ter­est to en­cour­age op­ti­mism.

Sim­i­lar­ly, a core seg­ment of the non-en­er­gy sec­tor man­u­fac­tur­ing, petro­chem­i­cals, de­pends on nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion. A sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Point Lisas petro­chem­i­cal plants re­main closed be­cause there is in­suf­fi­cient nat­ur­al gas feed­stock to keep them op­er­a­tional. As a re­sult, the for­eign ex­change mar­ket func­tions poor­ly, even if it is not in cri­sis.

The IMF, in its last re­port, again urged the Gov­ern­ment to re­form the mar­ket. Once again, the ad­vice has been ig­nored. That re­port al­so urged the im­per­a­tive of di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and the im­por­tance of man­ag­ing the deficit and gov­ern­ment debt.

The crime sit­u­a­tion al­so re­mains un­changed, with a high mur­der rate and a poor de­tec­tion rate. The so­cial con­di­tions sug­gest gang­land re­cruit­ment will con­tin­ue unchecked. Ad­dress­ing these long-stand­ing is­sues de­mands a dif­fer­ent ap­proach, a new for­mu­la­tion, which nei­ther the par­ty nor the cur­rent crop of po­lit­i­cal lead­ers ap­pears ready to es­pouse or ar­tic­u­late. The pop­u­la­tion is age­ing, and there is pub­lic pres­sure to in­crease ex­pen­di­ture on health care and so­cial ser­vices. Ad­dress­ing these chal­lenges re­quires a more ro­bust ap­proach and a dif­fer­ent lead­er­ship.