What­ev­er qualms about the cur­rent Par­lia­ment be­ing the 13th, it’s clear that if the five-year term pro­ceeds like yes­ter­day’s grand open­ing, it will be rich in con­tent, colour—and con­tro­ver­sy.

The fact that yes­ter­day’s launch al­most co­in­cid­ed with the May 24, 2010 date of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)/Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion’s gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry, or that T&T’s lead­er­ship is now all-fe­male—Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader—are now yes­ter­day’s foot­notes. Pri­or­i­ty fo­cus is how such lead­ers per­form to­day and to­mor­row.

Yes­ter­day’s cer­e­mo­ny, which launched the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment’s place in Par­lia­ment for a sec­ond time, would have sup­plied thou­sands of words, miles of video footage and pho­tos, an ex­plo­sion of fash­ion, plus large-scale hap­pi­ness for UNC and To­ba­go Peo­ple Par­ty (TPP) and mixed feel­ings by Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) back­ers as the event opened an­oth­er page of his­to­ry.

And now: what­ev­er’s done in front and be­hind the scenes on all sides be­comes pub­lic with the per­for­mances of the UNC Gov­ern­ment, TPP and Op­po­si­tion PNM on the Par­lia­ment floor. All will be told—an­nounce­ment, rev­e­la­tion, crit­i­cism, ex­pose, de­fence, at­tack.

The mag­ni­tude of yes­ter­day’s func­tion may be seen as com­men­su­rate with the strength of the UNC’s 26 seats and mega Gov­ern­ment line-up —38 min­is­te­r­i­al posts at var­i­ous lev­els up to Thurs­day.

Nu­mer­i­cal­ly strong,in­clud­ing 22 first timers in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, it’s a heavy line-up which the PNM, seek­ing its col­lec­tive legs, is re­quired to deal with by re­pair­ing its dis­con­nec­tion with its ex­ter­nal base and in­ter­nal self which land­ed it in Op­po­si­tion.

In­deed, the PNM will have to learn to am­pli­fy its desk pound­ing to reach UNC’s thun­der­ous thumps seen yes­ter­day.

Pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers in the Sen­ate and HOR, well known, fea­tured with the UNC dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign. Be­yond Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, the choice of House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh—fa­cil­i­tat­ed by UNC’s strong­ly seat­ed sta­tus—will at­tract cer­tain dou­ble takes, as some Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion picks did. And for non-ap­pointees to Par­lia­ment, lessons will be learned.

With every ex­tra mem­ber, the weight of ex­pec­ta­tion on Gov­ern­ment has in­creased and sym­pa­thy on “teething prob­lems” - ad­mit­ted to by the PM on Thurs­day —de­creased. Par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the much-tout­ed im­age of fe­male lead­er­ship’s car­ing man­age­ment. Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s main­tained that pro­mo­tion, but in a tougher un­fil­tered style. A les­son for all.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo re­ceived such re­gard­ing prop­er­ty tax re­fund re­marks: “as­sis­tance” from sea­soned Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh and Trade Min­is­ter Ka­ma Ma­haraj. Chan­nelling of their com­bined tal­ents sig­nalled Gov­ern­ment’s need for stronger fi­nance team—the most im­por­tant port­fo­lio. Yes­ter­day’s oil price was ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$61 and gas (US)$3. The 2025 Bud­get was pegged on US$77.80 and US$ 3.59.

The test comes with the mid-year re­view, which must de­tail so­lu­tions, in­clud­ing rev­enue stream out­reach, US and Cari­com-wise, be­yond talk and PNM “pres­sure”.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine added to Gov­ern­ment’s agen­da set­ting the stage for his two TPP MPs’ place in the Par­lia­ment—and To­ba­go—with his mo­tion for Gov­ern­ment to re­vamp the au­ton­o­my bills and rein­tro­duce them. Be­yond suit­ing Gov­ern­ment’s pur­pose to­wards a sol­id front to dec­i­mate the PNM —To­ba­go al­ready down—Au­gus­tine’s call will ben­e­fit his TPP in the first in­stance. Once ac­cept­ed, it could as­sist TPP’s chances in the up­com­ing THA polls.

It’s yet an­oth­er chal­lenge for the PNM in seek­ing con­sol­i­da­tion and amal­ga­ma­tion. While di­vi­sions at the PNM’s re­cent Gen­er­al Coun­cil ap­pear less, “un­der­ground” so­cial me­dia de­trac­tors con­tin­ue. While on­go­ing post-mortem meet­ings with units of­fer the lead­er­ship a chance for can­vass­ing for the PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tion, if loy­al­ty is a cri­te­ria, some units are mon­i­tor­ing per­for­mance to de­cide their sup­port.

PNM’s Sen­ate team of ex-gov­ern­ment faces, plus new faces, in­clud­ed Vish­nu Dhan­paul, for­mer PM Stu­art Young’s Fi­nance Min­is­ter, as well as a fifth at­tor­ney to the over­all team and To­ba­go in­put. Young, two seats down from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les in the House, is in the up­per part of the team.

If Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment has adopt­ed the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment’s tight-lipped ap­proach, some in PNM are won­der­ing—af­ter Thurs­day’s Gov­ern­ment ex­pos­es on some PN­MItes—how much the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­u­ing “mashup” of cer­tain PNM of­fi­cials may im­pact (or aid) some in the PNM.

Bat­tle’s be­gun. Whether the 14th Par­lia­ment be­gins April 2030 —or be­fore—up­com­ing fight will dic­tate.