The road ahead is a de­mand­ing one for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who now must find a way to have her dif­fuse “Coali­tion of In­ter­ests” co­here around prin­ci­ples and pro­grammes.

For starters, the strength of the trade union group­ing, which is tak­ing two hard­core Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment seats to the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble, can­not be eas­i­ly ig­nored. Ten­sion will, there­fore, sure­ly mount, as the Prime Min­is­ter has the ul­ti­mate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to look af­ter the na­tion­al in­ter­est ahead of the sec­tion­al in­ter­ests of the trade unions.

The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty with its two seats, even though not need­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress com­bine, will no doubt feel it has a man­date to force the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to meet its var­i­ous de­mands on be­half of the elec­torate in To­ba­go.

Pub­lic sec­tor trade unions will al­so be mak­ing their own de­mands, re­mind­ing the Prime Min­is­ter of her promise to be­gin long out­stand­ing pay ne­go­ti­a­tions at 10 per cent. Her com­mit­ment to restart the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, so it once again re­turns to vi­a­bil­i­ty, is a ma­jor task to be un­der­tak­en.

It is quite pos­si­ble that the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union will re­new its am­bi­tions to take over the re­fin­ery. Will its propo­si­tion, which seemed en­tire­ly un­at­trac­tive and in­fea­si­ble to the last gov­ern­ment, be looked up­on by Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s gov­ern­ment as a work­able pos­si­bil­i­ty? For the unions, they will sure­ly be test­ing their strengths in the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.

The promised fore­go­ing of vi­tal rev­enue through re­duc­tions and even re­moval of tax­es will al­so be very dif­fi­cult to achieve at the same time that the gov­ern­ment will have to con­front the task of meet­ing fis­cal needs while at­tempt­ing eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion.

The chal­lenges list­ed above and more will be the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Prime Min­is­ter, as the ul­ti­mate and most im­por­tant in­di­vid­ual ar­biter and de­ci­sion-mak­er in the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.

It can­not be for­got­ten and or min­imised that giv­en such a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in 2010 by the elec­torate, the UNC leader failed to achieve co­her­ence and so with­in months of be­ing placed in gov­ern­ment, the erup­tion and dis­in­te­gra­tion be­gan and nev­er end­ed.

So­lu­tions to those prob­lems, which will sure­ly arise again when the spoils of the elec­tion vic­to­ry are be­ing shared around, in­clud­ing at the first point, min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ments, must be found.

Re­gard­ing the Drag­on and Co­quina gas pro­pos­als put asun­der by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to starve Venezuela’s Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro of oxy­gen to breathe, the UNC ex­pressed con­fi­dence that it had the ne­go­ti­at­ing skills to have Pres­i­dent Trump at least re­think re­turn­ing the OFAC li­cence for the Drag­on to be re­turned to life.

The above, tak­en as a whole and added to the many oth­er chal­lenges faced by the gov­ern­ment and the coun­try, are mas­sive.

By her own ad­mis­sion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­knowl­edged her “frailty.” But, as she demon­strat­ed in the in­ter­nal bat­tles lead­ing to the se­lec­tion of can­di­dates, she still has the ca­pac­i­ty to fight her way through. The prob­lems of the coun­try are, how­ev­er, far greater in scope and dif­fi­cul­ty com­pared to in­ter­nal par­ty squab­bling. In the in­ter­est of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the gov­ern­ment needs con­sid­er­a­tion.