GAIL ALEXAN­DER

The air around yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment as­sem­bly ho­n­our­ing In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di con­veyed more than speech­es.

Mo­di’s vis­it, which re­turned the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre to use—af­ter sub­stan­tial im­prove­ment on ar­eas used, min­is­ters said—was a pos­i­tive for Gov­ern­ment. Re­in­forc­ing base sup­port and all ben­e­fit­ting from In­dia’s lat­est com­mit­ments.

But re­al­i­ties hov­ered. Near the Par­lia­ment, fired work­ers whom Op­po­si­tion PNM Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans joined in sol­i­dar­i­ty, post-as­sem­bly. In­side Par­lia­ment, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, re­minders of last Sun­day’s Gov­ern­ment me­dia brief­ing push on them.

Whether spooked by In­de­pen­dents’ re­cent keen scruti­ny of bills, or echo­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s term-launch warn­ing that the sev­en new In­de­pen­dents not be in­flu­enced by two who were reap­point­ed, Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ces­sive­ness to co­erce In­de­pen­dents’ back­ing for the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion Amend­ment Bill, now sets the Sen­ate as a bat­tle­ground be­yond bills. Es­pe­cial­ly fol­low­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “scruti­ny” warn­ing on the is­sue.

Scruti­ny which Gov­ern­ment is al­so sub­ject to.

With Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s in­tim­i­da­tion warn­ing dis­re­gard­ed by UNC’s un­re­pen­tant PRO fol­low­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira’s stance against bul­ly­ing, Mark’s man­age­ment of the im­passe is ahead, af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar‘s re­marks sup­port­ed her team’s cor­ro­sive ap­proach.

UNC had clashed bit­ter­ly with Vieira in its un­suc­cess­ful 2021 mo­tion to re­move then-pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes.

UNC’s state­ments re­gard­ing In­de­pen­dents al­so telegraphed to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo - who ap­point­ed them - her fu­ture when her term ends in 2028. This, as the Op­po­si­tion’s cur­rent­ly deemed 19,810 peo­ple “un­em­ployed, fired, not re­newed.”

UNC’s fir­ing fren­zy pro­duced dam­age con­trol re­pos­tur­ing last Sun­day, in­clud­ing of­fer­ing Pub­lic Ser­cies As­so­ci­a­tion head Fe­l­isha Thomas to re­in­force the par­ty’s work­er-friend­ly im­age. Pro-pub­lic plead­ings al­so came from min­is­ters in the Pen­sion Bill de­bate.

But over­all, the slash-and-burn ap­proach has em­bar­rassed the UNC’s labour part­ners.

Purg­ing PN­Mites, fall­out on work­ers from Gov­ern­ment’s on­slaught re­in­forced PNM Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts- Radg­man’s “hypocrisy” la­bel on Tues­day and showed the lev­el of dis­cus­sion with, or con­sid­er­a­tion for Gov­ern­ment’s labour part­ners, whose mem­bers’ set­tle­ments may now stand among pos­si­ble Gov­ern­ment costs from as­sort­ed sack­ings.

Af­ter the PNM on Wednes­day ac­cused unions of si­lence, at 9.34 pm, An­cel Ro­get’s JTUM is­sued a state­ment of sol­i­dar­i­ty with af­fect­ed CEPEP work­ers rec­om­mend­ing a re­or­gan­i­sa­tion plan. While JTUM’s nudge to Gov­ern­ment sal­vaged its own rep­u­ta­tion, al­so ob­serv­ing is the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP)/To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), await­ing de­ci­sion on a big­ger 2026 al­lo­ca­tion. That de­ter­mines if the TPP will be fight­ing oth­er op­po­nents ahead be­sides PNM.

Be­yond the UNC’s 26-seat con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty, the im­age of 28-seat strength ear­ly in its tenure is im­por­tant enough to strength­en TPP ties, af­ter the TPP’s gen­er­al elec­tion sweep and THA polls loom­ing.

To­mor­row’s launch of Cari­com’s 49th con­fer­ence in Ja­maica fea­tures Per­sad-Bisses­sar among speak­ers.

Her Cari­com re­turn—af­ter a 2010 de­but in Ja­maica al­so—may re­set foot­ing af­ter clash­es be­tween her For­eign Af­fairs and En­er­gy Min­is­ters with An­tigua and Vin­cent­ian lead­ers. Cer­tain re­gion­al con­cerns al­so arose that Gov­ern­ment’s griev­ances re­gard­ing Venezuela’s re­cent se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns weren’t shared with Cari­com.

Be­yond her 2010 ap­pear­ance —in­clud­ing re­mark­ing that T&T wasn’t an ATM card and the sub­se­quent TT/Ja­maica trade prob­lems—among cur­rent con­fer­ence items, the sum­mit of­fers the first op­por­tu­ni­ty for re­gion­al en­er­gy dis­course, post-US halt of T&T’s gas ex­plo­ration li­cences. That oc­curred af­ter Cari­com’s Feb­ru­ary meet­ing.

Al­so in fo­cus: T&T’s chair­man­ship of Cari­com’s se­cu­ri­ty com­mit­tee re­quir­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar to carve out an iden­ti­ty in this area. In­ter­pol’s sec­re­tary gen­er­al is Cari­com’s guest.

Among T&T se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion can’t sus­pend DCP Suzette Mar­tin —un­der TTPS probe—due to the 2023 Gov­ern­ment ap­peal of the rul­ing in the Brent Thomas mat­ter.

Whether Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath—first in the min­is­ters’ line on the Pi­ar­co Air­port’s tar­mac to greet Mo­di, is ap­point­ed to act in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence, oth­ers al­so tipped: Jear­lean John, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and OPM Min­is­ter Dar­ryl Al­la­har, res­i­dent OPM at­tor­ney (as PNM’s Stu­art Young was).

If Mo­di’s ad­dress yes­ter­day unit­ed all Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in desk-thump­ing sup­port, it’s ahead how much his ref­er­ence to T&T’s mot­to, “To­geth­er we as­pire, to­geth­er we achieve,” fur­ther as­sists them.

And if the sym­bol­ism of In­dia’s 1968 gift of the House Speak­er’s Chair, which Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed, in­cludes “en­dur­ing be­lief that di­a­logue, not di­vi­sion, must guide us,” is ho­n­oured be­yond yes­ter­day’s speech­es.