On April 28, we wit­nessed the sec­ond com­ing of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC.

Jacque­line Charles, writ­ing in the Mi­a­mi Her­ald, not­ed, “Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar staged the biggest po­lit­i­cal come­back in the coun­try’s his­to­ry.”

Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley con­grat­u­lat­ed “the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go on the peace­ful ex­er­cise of their de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights.”

When Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­sent­ed her can­di­dates two days be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, she praised the peo­ple, say­ing, “You are the re­al he­roes in this sto­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go… This vic­to­ry is for the se­nior cit­i­zens to keep their pen­sions. This vic­to­ry is for pub­lic ser­vants to get their right­ful salaries. This vic­to­ry is to re­open the Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal. This vic­to­ry is to once again give lap­tops to our chil­dren. This vic­to­ry is to cre­ate over 50,000 jobs.”

But the re­al hero is this 73-year-old grand­moth­er who was crit­i­cised, vil­i­fied, and mocked for over a decade, not just by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­bers but mem­bers of her par­ty, per­sons she once brought in­to the fold to be Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.

William Shake­speare’s Julius Cae­sar, Act 3, Scene 1: “Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Cae­sar,” il­lus­trate the el­e­ment of hu­man be­tray­al. Cae­sar recog­nised his close friend Bru­tus among his at­tack­ers.

Mem­bers who whis­pered that, “once Kam­la is there, the PNM would win,” caused many gullible ones to re­peat and be­lieve this view. Well, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not on­ly proved them wrong but dis­played her strength. With the con­stant bar­rage, a weak­er mor­tal would have fold­ed.

The PR work of Dr Kirk Meighoo, the ef­forts from Bar­ry Padarath, Jear­lean John and their cam­paign team cer­tain­ly paid off, along with the in­put of the non-UNC mem­bers in the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.

The new naysay­ers would be those who kept silent when their par­ty was in pow­er, but would now scream loud­ly and de­mand that things be fixed overnight, such is pol­i­tics. Oth­ers would be dis­grun­tled mem­bers of her par­ty vy­ing for var­i­ous po­si­tions, along with the new Bru­ti vy­ing for pow­er and, of course, the bit­ter Ju­das­es who aban­doned their par­ty and who still seek rel­e­vance. In a democ­ra­cy, con­struc­tive cri­tique must be ex­pect­ed from those who mean well and want to of­fer al­ter­nate views. An in­de­pen­dent me­di­a­tion team should be set up to hear the grous­es and dif­fer­ences which will emerge and month­ly re­treats to deal with such is­sues. Any im­plo­sion which oc­curred in pre­vi­ous al­liances could fur­ther alien­ate and dis­il­lu­sion cit­i­zens. Al­most half of el­i­gi­ble vot­ers did not vote.

The dis­en­chant­ment with the PNM gov­ern­ment, the mul­ti-racial grass­roots ap­peal, the labour unions’ em­brace, pos­i­tive cam­paign­ing and a di­verse se­lec­tion of can­di­dates all worked in the UNC’s favour.

Let­ter writer Abi­gail Ajim wrote, “The UNC won be­cause they of­fered a com­pet­ing vi­sion for the coun­try, not just be­cause peo­ple were fed up with the PNM. Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­peared more be­liev­able (she was re­pen­tant, re­lat­able, like­able, and gen­uine). Her bi­og­ra­phy in­clud­ed wait­ing ta­bles in the UK and mov­ing from house to house be­fore high­er ed­u­ca­tion changed her for­tunes. The most en­dur­ing im­age of this elec­tion cam­paign will be the out­pour­ing of racial uni­ty, sol­i­dar­i­ty, and sheer joy on the faces of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans in the past four weeks.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar pledged she will ho­n­our five cam­paign promis­es: pen­sion for the aged; lap­tops in schools; re­open­ing of the Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal; 10 per cent in­creas­es to work­ers; and re­open­ing of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

This is not an easy task and some goals may have to be stag­gered af­ter the Cen­tral Bank gives an up-to-date pic­ture of the state of our coun­try’s debt oblig­a­tions, rev­enue and ex­pen­di­ture.

In this blessed twin is­land re­pub­lic, elec­tions bring out our pas­sion, loy­al­ties, and some­times, our fears. But be­yond the red and the yel­low, be­yond the blue or the or­ange—there lies some­thing deep­er. We are a peo­ple with po­ten­tial and who still be­lieve bet­ter is pos­si­ble.

To the coali­tion: con­grat­u­la­tions. You fought hard and the peo­ple placed their trust in you. But know this—it is not a crown you wear, but a bur­den. A sa­cred du­ty. The same mouths that cheered for you will cry out in frus­tra­tion if promis­es go un­ful­filled. So, walk humbly. Talk less, lis­ten more. Don’t let the po­si­tion change your pur­pose. Let the pow­er re­mind you of your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to all—those who vot­ed for you, and those who didn’t.

The cham­pagne might pop tonight but to­mor­row starts the re­al work. And that work must be for every cit­i­zen. The sin­gle moth­er try­ing to raise her chil­dren in a crime-plagued area. The pen­sion­er who waits hours for pub­lic health­care. The youth bat­tling job­less­ness. The farmer strug­gling with floods and prae­di­al lar­ce­ny. These are the peo­ple who gave you their hopes.