Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ju­bi­lant at Mon­day’s meet­ing in Pe­nal, as she clear­ly heads in­to re-elec­tion as UNC’s leader, re­in­forc­ing her stand­ing.

Cel­e­brat­ing achieve­ments from In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di’s vis­it and not­ing In­dia’s eco­nom­ic and pop­u­la­tion size, she quipped, “When you’re look­ing for friends, those are good friends to have.”

Whether or not sig­nalling how Gov­ern­ment’s al­liances are cho­sen, the PM’s ab­sence from the re­cent Cari­com con­fer­ence in Ja­maica was clear­ly felt by re­gion­al coun­ter­parts. Per­sis­tent calls by An­tigua and St Vin­cent’s lead­ers for at­ten­tion on mat­ters, in­clud­ing T&T’s (US)$60 mil­lion Cli­co debt—an­oth­er bur­den for Fi­nance—re­mained un­re­solved.

Skip­ping her de­but Cari­com meet­ing sparked in­ter­nal chat­ter and neg­a­tive ex­ter­nal con­cern over T&T’s tra­di­tion­al­ly strong lead­er­ship role in the re­gion. It has raised ques­tions about T&T’s fu­ture con­tri­bu­tions at a time when for­mer Cari­com chair Mia Mot­t­ley stat­ed at the sum­mit open­ing—where Per­sad-Bisses­sar was sched­uled to speak—that if ever there was a time for re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, “it is ab­solute­ly now.”

How Gov­ern­ment’s “pause” to as­sess the im­pact of full re­gion­al free move­ment (RFM), sig­nalled Thurs­day by For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, aligns with what lies ahead—and whether the con­cerns in­volve job se­cu­ri­ty and oth­er is­sues for na­tion­als—re­mains to be seen.

If Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tends Cari­com’s 50th con­fer­ence in St Kitts in Feb­ru­ary, the spot­light will in­stead be on the new Suri­name Pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Si­mons. While Sobers on­ly vir­tu­al­ly at­tend­ed Cari­com’s May Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions (COF­COR) meet­ing, Min­istry Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary Nicholas Mor­ris at­tend­ed the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in June in An­tigua, and has just re­turned from the Glob­al Civil­i­sa­tions Di­a­logue Min­is­te­r­i­al Meet­ing in Chi­na, host­ed by the Pub­lic­i­ty and In­ter­na­tion­al De­part­ments of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of Chi­na Cen­tral Com­mit­tee.

Mon­day’s Gov­ern­ment state­ments con­firmed the pres­sure be­ing faced lo­cal­ly. En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues wear­ing “bat­tle gear as the en­e­my’s still there—the PNM.” Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that fear, say­ing, “The en­e­my’s at the gate, al­ways at the gate.” She did not go in­to specifics.

If Cari­com High Com­mis­sion­er Ralph Maraj is now the fourth ex-PNM mem­ber in Gov­ern­ment’s front­lines, Per­sad-Bisses­sar and UNC’s Clyde El­der of­fered the “Hold Strain” re­frain on Mon­day to job seek­ers and sup­port­ers await­ing ful­fil­ment of UNC’s promis­es. El­der ad­mit­ted that some are “rest­less and ag­i­tat­ed.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ments sought to steady sup­port af­ter the con­tro­ver­sial in­creas­es in le­gal ages for mar­i­jua­na, al­co­hol, and gam­bling use. She pro­vid­ed up­dates on promised ini­tia­tives and the “plum” of ex­empt­ing pen­sions from tax—tar­get­ing a de­mo­graph­ic that could re­in­force sup­port against po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents. Since its an­nounce­ment, Gov­ern­ment may have con­sid­ered how much this fur­ther in­flames the deficit, which im­pacts the UNC’s up­com­ing, heav­i­ly bur­dened bud­get.

Ques­tions al­so sim­mer about who may be cho­sen as Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed Chan­cel­lor of the Ju­di­cia­ry—an­oth­er in­di­ca­tor of a broad­er con­sti­tu­tion­al shift.

Mean­while, PDP Leader Wat­son Duke ad­dressed the job re­quest he made to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, which she ref­er­enced in May: “The Prime Min­is­ter’s in­di­cat­ed she’ll give the mat­ter due con­sid­er­a­tion and get back to me. I re­main pa­tient and open-mind­ed. What­ev­er de­ci­sion or role she deems ap­pro­pri­ate in sup­port of the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment, I stand ready to con­tribute and of­fer full sup­port.”

Whether the PM’s “en­e­my at the gate” re­mark al­so per­tains to the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors whose votes af­fect Gov­ern­ment’s leg­is­la­tion, UNC PRO Kirk Meighoo ac­knowl­edged their pow­er “to thwart the will of 330,000” who elect­ed the spe­cial-ma­jor­i­ty Gov­ern­ment.

Al­so linked to Gov­ern­ment’s job-cre­ation prospects is the re­open­ing of the Guaracara Re­fin­ery, now in the hands of the Kevin Ram­nar­ine-led as­sess­ment team.

Whether the num­ber of OW­TU nom­i­nees on the team af­fects the per­cep­tion of the union’s bid for the re­fin­ery—and whether the team’s find­ings al­ter the union’s plan—is ahead.

OW­TU’s first meet­ing with the En­er­gy Min­is­ter in May out­lined its ap­proach. A dif­fer­ent com­pa­ny than the in­debt­ed Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies was ex­pect­ed to be in­volved. All bids re­main on hold pend­ing the team’s re­port.

The Op­po­si­tion PNM an­tic­i­pates that the CEPEP work­ers’ le­gal fight will be the first of fur­ther court bat­tles on be­half of the pub­lic.

Par­ty “heal­ing” ef­forts in­clud­ed PNM Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ meet­ing last Fri­day with de­feat­ed gen­er­al and in­ter­nal elec­tion can­di­dates. Thurs­day’s Beetham meet­ing fea­tured speak­ers, in­clud­ing un­suc­cess­ful can­di­date San­jiv Bood­hu.

Beck­les is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce her deputy lead­ers at a Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing and to vis­it To­ba­go soon.