Gail Alexan­der

Thurs­day’s warn­ings by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to lo­cal and for­eign op­po­nents, set the stage for fall­out in myr­i­ad sec­tors.

Ver­bal mis­siles Venezuela-wards—con­cern­ing the al­leged use of T&T as a launch­ing pad by a para­mil­i­tary group—sup­ple­ment­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warn­ing to Venezue­lan il­le­gals while she was in Op­po­si­tion—had al­ready trig­gered con­cern across the Gulf. The lat­est mat­ter where her threat of dead­ly force—im­ply­ing se­ri­ous in­jury or death —for in­cur­sion, while per­ceived as ex­treme, was re­in­forced with yes­ter­day’s de­ten­tion of 28 Venezue­lan il­le­gals. It’s clear her new Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to bol­ster an im­age of strength in the face of se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions and tele­graph its loy­al­ty to the US, with whom Gov­ern­ment’s en­er­gy and trade hopes re­side.

Venezue­lan—diplo­mat­i­cal­ly couched—“sur­prise” on her stance still leaves a door open to seek talks, sources say.

Gov­ern­ment al­so took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­front is­sues per­tain­ing to Venezue­lan pres­ence here, among which there are “a few mem­bers” of the Tren de Aragua transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion. Whether warn­ing Venezue­lans to start go­ing home and oth­er mes­sages, Gov­ern­ment’s modus operan­di with T&T’s clos­est neigh­bour—even if the Drag­on gas project is “dead”—will strike a re­gion­al note.

Cari­com had al­ready lost ground with Thurs­day’s US Supreme Court dis­missal of Mex­i­co’s bid to hold US gun­mak­ers li­able for vi­o­lence in­flict­ed us­ing their weapons—which T&T and oth­er Cari­com states sup­port­ed dur­ing the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion’s tenure. There are oth­er le­gal out­comes loom­ing con­cern­ing mat­ters against the past gov­ern­ment.

Gov­ern­ment’s “out­ing” of cer­tain ex-Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) min­is­ters’ op­er­a­tions and hints of more to come in the mid-year re­view are ex­pect­ed to see a blis­ter­ing fo­cus on the PNM, seek­ing to re­group post-Gen­er­al Elec­tion de­feat. What­ev­er the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress pelts at PNM in the June 16-18 re­view de­bates will im­pact the Op­po­si­tion —and pro­files in­volved in PNM’s elec­tion.

PNM leader-elect Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ Tues­day me­dia brief­ing —em­u­lat­ing UNC’s lengthy for­mat —ap­peared nec­es­sary to ad­dress is­sues aris­ing from Gov­ern­ment state­ments. Her team will have to switch ful­ly to Op­po­si­tion mind­set on re­spons­es. Beck­les ad­mit­ted hear­ing com­plaints about not speak­ing enough. The ex­tent to which the tran­si­tion has been lack­ing was al­so dis­played in Tues­day’s er­ror, when she said, “The Gov­ern­ment—the Op­po­si­tion, sor­ry, is con­cerned …”

If cer­tain con­stituen­cy mem­bers re­cent­ly blamed past lead­er­ship for de­feat, her team can­not dis­tance them­selves from their col­lec­tive gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions. An in­dict­ment on their per­for­mance came when ex-leader Row­ley had to give the facts on var­i­ous is­sues via Face­book, jab­bing suc­ces­sors on their fail­ure to as­sume their job for T&T as Op­po­si­tion to a strong­ly seat­ed Gov­ern­ment seek­ing un­tram­melled pow­er.

Whether PNM’s in­ter­nal elec­tion re­solves is­sues is ahead. Three sets of con­tes­tants emerged: Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons slate, ten-plus in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates and “One PNM” slate launch­ing to­day, ad­ver­tised as be­ing “led” by Beck­les and cam­paign­ing on “bring­ing PNM to­geth­er.” An in­vi­ta­tion to cov­er this came from Fos­ter Cum­mings, who is seek­ing the gen­er­al sec­re­tary post again. “One PNM” in­cludes some cur­rent Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, in­clud­ing cer­tain in­cum­bent of­fi­cers, plus new­com­ers.

Beck­les didn’t re­ply on if it’s her slate (or oth­ers), on­ly say­ing, “When I launch Sat­ur­day, all in­for­ma­tion will be giv­en.”

Be­yond leader, the oth­er 50 can­di­dates vy­ing for the re­main­ing 15 posts out­num­ber the 39 who con­test­ed the 16 posts in PNM’s 2022 in­ter­nals. There are 44 new­com­ers among cur­rent can­di­dates.

The elec­tion tests the cred­i­bil­i­ty and stand­ing of Peo­ple’s Cham­pi­ons, “One PNM” mem­bers and in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates like PoS may­or Chin­ua Al­leyne (de­feat­ed for chair­man­ship by Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly’s con­tro­ver­sial two ex­tra votes), Paula Gopee-Scoon (who brought home Lengua In­di­an Walk), ex-min­is­ter Roger Boynes (chal­leng­ing de­feat­ed MP Cum­mings), Gads­by-Dol­ly’s bid to helm the Women’s League and for­mer la­dy vice chair­man Don­na Cox’s bid to re­turn to same.

Votes and turnout, whether high­er or low­er than the 2022 fig­ure of 8,424 (which Row­ley re­ceived) and 9,903 vot­ers re­spec­tive­ly, will sig­nal mem­bers’ views.

Beck­les’ state­ments about con­stituen­cies feel­ing dis­con­nect­ed has set her own chal­lenge. Proof of her lead­er­ship brand will in­clude how suc­cess­ful­ly she rec­ti­fies this and bridges sim­i­lar dis­con­nec­tion by oth­ers. Her three new deputy lead­ers will tele­graph to cov­et­ed “float­ing/fence sit­ter vot­ers, if the “One PNM” claim of the slate be­ing launched to­day along­side her name is sin­cere.