Gail Alexan­der

Cer­tain­ly for­mer COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har won't be re­main­ing "mum" much longer.

Con­tro­ver­sy fol­low­ing his agree­ment to be part of the PNM Gov­ern­ment's re­cent Ja­maica mis­sion hasn't es­caped him. And per­haps it may not nec­es­sar­i­ly be his last "in­put" with the Row­ley PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

It'll soon be clear. But it will present an is­sue for the Op­po­si­tion to pon­der.

Fam­i­ly "is­sues"–po­lit­i­cal and oth­er­wise–broke out in var­i­ous sec­tors all week. Some Cen­tral clans were wracked–and split–by the mur­der of no­to­ri­ous Sel­wyn "Robo­cop" Alex­is, a still un­fold­ing sto­ry.

Fa­mil­ial splits and sna­fus were al­so clear at the US Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion in Ohio where Don­ald Trump be­came the be­lea­guered par­ty's pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. State gov­er­nor Ron Ka­sich wasn't the on­ly jefe ab­sent.

Team Trump's op­er­a­tional-tight­en­ing will now have to guard against fur­ther pla­gia­ris­ing (from Michelle Oba­ma's ad­dress­es.)

For­mer con­tender Ted Cruz's call for a con­science vote re­mains to be test­ed. And Tues­day's ra­bid con­ven­tion calls to "Lock her (HIllary Clin­ton) up" are set to move from con­fer­ence floor to cam­paign fer­vor.

Trump's state­ments Thurs­day - pitched to LGBT quar­ters among oth­ers–seen as ap­pro­pri­ate­ly mod­er­ate com­pared to con­ven­tion con­fu­sion–will be mea­sured ful­ly when De­moc­rats re­ply with their gath­er­ing next week.

Lo­cal­ly, strate­gic moves by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion–against Op­po­si­tion num­bers–via COP MP Ra­mad­har's in­clu­sion on the Prime Min­is­ter's Ja­maican trip are al­so to play out.

Af­ter the Op­po­si­tion Leader's com­plaint there was no con­sul­ta­tion by Gov­ern­ment on the in­vi­ta­tion to Ra­mad­har (or to Op­po­si­tion MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al) UNC of­fi­cials be­lieve moves to cut in­to their ranks were be­ing made since Bail Bill de­bate when ef­forts were made to meet with the Op­po­si­tion whip and oth­ers– but not the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Op­po­si­tion whip Gan­ga Singh says that is a breach of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

How that ar­gu­ment holds up with Ra­mad­har's agree­ment on the Ja­maica trip is an­oth­er is­sue. While Ra­mad­har said he cleared it with his COP leader–his for­mer deputy when he was COP leader–UNC of­fi­cials not­ed Ra­mad­har at­tends Op­po­si­tion cau­cus­es and has signed doc­u­ments say­ing he sup­ports Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar.

Pon­der­ing his ac­tion in the con­text of team uni­ty, some equate his cross­ing of the seas with the Gov­ern­ment team with a "cross­ing of the floor," away from the Op­po­si­tion dock.

Re­in­forc­ing per­spec­tive, on the eve of the Gov­ern­ment del­e­ga­tion's re­turn, the Op­po­si­tion panned the trip.

Yes­ter­day while some UNC of­fi­cials queried Ra­mad­har's role in the trip–not­ing his Op­po­si­tion shad­ow port­fo­lio con­cerns na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and le­gal af­fairs, not for­eign af­fairs–they how­ev­er ac­knowl­edged since he was not a UNC MP, he was on­ly sub­ject to COP sanc­tion, not the UNC's.

"He's said he's mak­ing a state­ment, I await this," Singh said yes­ter­day

In Op­po­si­tion last De­cem­ber, Ra­mad­har said the COP (he'd head­ed then) was out of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship and COP might con­test 2020 polls alone.

Yes­ter­day on pos­si­ble fu­ture ac­tion–like the Ja­maica trip– in­clud­ing with gov­ern­ment, Ra­mad­har made it clear he would co-op­er­ate with, and COP would par­tic­i­pate in, "what is good for T&T.... if it in­volves a worth­while ef­fort that's po­ten­tial ben­e­fit for T&T. Ab­solute­ly."

In­clud­ing pro­posed leg­is­la­tion?

"It'll be on a case-by-case ba­sis. I'll have to be per­suad­ed, and oth­er things, I'll try to per­suade oth­er­wise," he added .

He not­ed his Feb­ru­ary state­ment that COP al­lows MPs to act at dis­cre­tion and con­science "So I re­main open" he'd said then.

A month lat­er in March, he'd said there was need for all po­lit­i­cal forces to come to­geth­er to de­feat PNM in 2020. Dis­cus­sion on that has been mulled by some small groups

What­ev­er fu­ture Gov­ern­ment moves Ra­mad­har sup­ports, the reper­cus­sions on his strug­gling par­ty–which bit­ter­ly fought the PNM in 2010–re­main to un­fold. Es­pe­cial­ly since in March, he'd giv­en Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley a four out of ten for his six month per­for­mance, and bare­ly gave the PNM five.

But for­mer PP mem­ber Gary Grif­fith–whose Al­liance of In­de­pen­dents is among small groups talk­ing uni­ty–be­lieve Ra­mad­har's ac­cep­tance of the Ja­maica in­vi­ta­tion can as­sist the COP re­gain cred­i­bil­i­ty and re­build by break­ing out of the PP/UNC shad­ow, ma­ligned in the last term.

"Af­ter the Ja­maica trip, he (Ra­mad­har) should move from the Op­po­si­tion front­bench and go to the back­bench–be in­de­pen­dent," Grif­fith lob­bied.