Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader Dar­rell Al­la­har’s ec­sta­t­ic ex­pres­sion amid a sea of spec­ta­tors dur­ing Car­ni­val Fla­va Fri­day at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah would like­ly have been re­peat­ed on Ash Wednes­day, when T&T was re­moved from the Eu­ro­pean Union’s black­li­s­tand af­ter Gov­ern­ment deemed Car­ni­val 2026 suc­cess­ful.

Al­la­har held a ban­dana em­bla­zoned with Gih dem! (Crix), em­ploy­ing ca­lyp­so icon Machel Mon­tano’s Road March, whose lyrics were tai­lor-made re­gard­ing the Gov­ern­ment, for per­for­mance is a watch­word.

Ca­lyp­so vers­es al­so told the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ sto­ry in its en­core,” post-2010: “Dress re­hearsal done, de re­al ting start, we been here be­fore but the peo­ple want more, show dem the time of their life, make them ap­plaud us … gih dem per­for­mance.”

Gov­ern­ment—whose Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion deputy chair­man Ke­van Gibbs was a vet­er­an events pro­mot­er—fol­lowed the pre­scrip­tion in its test, stag­ing T&T’s biggest pub­lic par­ty. Not­ing the pop­u­la­tion han­dling tough fi­nan­cial times, less Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties and its own un­pop­u­lar­i­ty, Gov­ern­ment en­cour­aged large crowds with free con­certs and North Stand ac­cess. UNC sig­na­ture yel­low high­light­ed cos­tumes and steel­bands’ dec­o­ra­tions. Mas­quer­aders’ ex­pres­sions showed the mu­sic high.

Oth­er is­sues—in­clud­ing less spec­ta­tors—showed the re­al­i­ties.

TTT’s au­dio loss dur­ing for­mer Ca­lyp­so Monarch Helon Fran­cis’ per­for­mance last Sun­day was at an iron­ic point of his Don’t For­get com­po­si­tion, at lines be­gin­ning “...Where can we go, if they try to ban the words of mih ca­lyp­so...”

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MP Stu­art Young’s re­buke of cen­sor­ship prompt­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­ac­tion, deep­en­ing the sour note struck by the mat­ter. It re­in­forced con­cerns about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ques­tion­able stock-in-trade re­course to in­sults and of­fence as de­fence when un­der pres­sure. Her opin­ion cast blan­ket con­dem­na­tion on ca­lyp­so­ni­ans—the heart of T&T’s cul­tur­al sec­tor—claim­ing “po­lit­i­cal stooges mas­querad­ing as ca­lyp­so­ni­ans cen­sored ca­lyp­so them­selves” and a “ca­lyp­so tent can’t even sell 100 tick­ets on its best night” be­cause peo­ple have moved on “from that type of di­vi­sive­ness and neg­a­tiv­i­ty, and just want to en­joy them­selves and be hap­py.”

De­spite the PM prais­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch win­ner Ter­ri Lyons and Yung Bred­da, Lyons’ ap­peal for Bless­ings, lament­ing, “life is get­ting hard­er to man­age…the na­tion in dis­tress,” con­veyed no signs of hap­py peo­ple. Oth­er fi­nal­ists struck sim­i­lar notes.

OPM Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris on Thurs­day protest­ed too much in do­ing dam­age con­trol af­ter his boss’s vit­ri­olic state­ments on ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. And re­ject­ing a probe of the is­sue has now re­in­forced it as one which peo­ple—cer­tain­ly Fran­cis—“Don’t For­get.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­coup op­por­tu­ni­ty came with the EU’s whitelist­ing of T&T among her five-item list of achieve­ments re­gard­ing in­ter­na­tion­al en­ti­ties.

Her “bless­ing” list and a US-pub­lished New Na­tion­al In­ter­est ar­ti­cle laud­ing “How T&T took the lead in Caribbean Se­cu­ri­ty,” frames Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s en­try to next week’s Cari­com 50th con­fer­ence. In­deed, in Jan­u­ary, UNC of­fi­cials said she’d have at­tend­ed when she could “sweep in like a queen.”

Mi­nus last year’s fresh­man glow, her neg­a­tive Cari­com his­to­ry with the 2010 “T&T is no ATM card” re­mark, is com­pound­ed by the con­tro­ver­sies of her cur­rent tenure: US align­ment, “Kill them all” de­c­la­ra­tion, bit­ter state­ments on Cari­com, and sus­pect­ed UNC ac­tiv­i­ty in St Vin­cent and Bar­ba­dos’ elec­tions.

Still, the PM’s in­ter­act­ed on is­sues with Grena­da and Ja­maica lead­ers. The test of her pos­tur­ing and Cari­com’s fra­ter­nal spir­it and “club” strength has been shown in the re­gion­al body’s “big­ger” po­si­tion, of­fer­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­liv­er re­marks at Tues­day’s open­ing pro­gramme. An­oth­er in­cen­tive for at­tend­ing. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ex­pect her to share her vi­sion for Cari­com to have a seat at the glob­al ta­ble.

Spot­light’s al­so on new St Vin­cent PM God­win Fri­day and re-elect­ed St Lu­cia and Bar­ba­dos lead­ers Philip J Pierre and Mia Mot­t­ley. The lat­ter, gold­en, with a his­toric third term win af­ter tak­ing Bar­ba­dos suc­cess­ful­ly through IMF pro­grammes—now the re­gion­al yard­stick for lead­er­ship.

Cari­com Se­cu­ri­ty team head, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s po­si­tion—main­tain­ing need for Cari­com “trans­for­ma­tion” amid her com­mit­ment to Caribbean uni­ty—will be test­ed by her con­tri­bu­tion to dis­cus­sions on the US mil­i­tary pres­ence, oust­ing of Venezuela’s for­mer pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro, T&T’s in­creased du­ties on re­gion­al liquor, joint/con­trib­u­to­ry Cari­com ini­tia­tives, T&T’s stalled full free move­ment and pur­suit of a new (en­er­gy) bloc with Guyana and Suri­name.

What emerges from re­friend­ing Cari­com—or no—is ahead.