Be­neath the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion’s Christ­mas mes­sages in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Sen­ate on Tues­day and Wednes­day re­spec­tive­ly, the po­lit­i­cal land­scape’s re­al­i­ties con­cern­ing both were clear.

Gospel blend­ed with mes­sages in the HOR: PNM’s Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly not­ing Christ­mas will be hard for some; Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar boast­ing of Gov­ern­ment’s achieve­ments.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader Dar­rell Al­la­har, putting sea­son­al spin on a call for ceas­ing di­vi­sion; Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate leader Dr Amery Browne not­ing King Herod—nor “any big or lit­tle Grinch”—couldn’t de­stroy the Christ­mas spir­it. It all sig­nalled 2026 work is booked and it’s ahead whether PNM Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings’ ap­peal—for both sides to find com­mon ground more fre­quent­ly—ma­te­ri­alis­es.

Among Gov­ern­ment’s as­sign­ments, of­fi­cials said PSA’s 10 per cent back­pay won’t come from bor­row­ings or the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund.

Con­tin­u­ing live is­sue is forex sup­ply fol­low­ing the De­cem­ber 6 dis­missal of Ex­im­bank chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Navin Dook­er­an. This, af­ter Dook­er­an’s De­cem­ber 1 grilling at Par­lia­ment’s Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions’ in­quiry in­to the ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and im­por­ta­tion/ap­proval process.

With stake­hold­ers’ con­cern about forex com­pound­ed by the jar­ring ef­fect of the CEO’s dis­missal, mi­nus an ex­pla­na­tion, Ex­im­bank as a gov­ern­ment-owned pub­lic en­ti­ty, may be found want­i­ng af­ter si­lence on the is­sue.

The US radar’s po­si­tion, how­ev­er, has been as­sist­ed with US dis­tri­b­u­tion of To­ba­go school equip­ment and radar-re­vealed drugs in the Ca­roni Swamp.

Ques­tions re­main on radar us­age fol­low­ing the un­solved kid­nap­ping of the Monos Is­land Tardieu cou­ple. Plus, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty chair­man Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “fishy” pro­nounce­ment has coloured the is­sue.

The To­ba­go radar’s ac­com­pa­ny­ing road con­tin­ues un­der con­struc­tion, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials said. Re­cent US Ra­dio GT­MO con­fir­ma­tion that the radar can be used in US con­flict with Venezuela ex­plained why the so­phis­ti­cat­ed AN-TPS-80 G/Ator was cho­sen and al­so neu­tralised Gov­ern­ment’s claim the US didn’t need a radar here for any mil­i­tary pur­pose.

US “bat­tle” now tar­gets Venezuela’s econ­o­my: oil tanker seizure, sanc­tions on Venezuela lead­er­ship’s rel­a­tives. Venezuela’s pira­cy re­ply in­clud­ed an omi­nous mes­sage that T&T and Guyana are Venezue­lan “prop­er­ty.” The US yes­ter­day sig­nalled start­ing land ac­tion “pret­ty soon.” Tanker seizure has re­newed law­mak­ers’ bid for a war pow­ers res­o­lu­tions de­bate—ex­pect­ed next week—re­quir­ing Con­gress’ au­tho­ri­sa­tion for mil­i­tary ac­tion against Venezuela.

In T&T’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly “war,” with radar and au­ton­o­my key cam­paign is­sues, it’s ahead how TPP/PDP uni­ty as­sists TPP af­ter the radar’s re­moval be­came a joint theme for the PNM and IDA. PDP leader Wat­son Duke’s TPP sup­port rais­es queries over if he’s get­ting the job he re­quest­ed of Gov­ern­ment.

At Wednes­day’s PNM gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing, PN­Mites said it was ac­knowl­edged the THA fight is “dif­fi­cult,” re­quir­ing help. The PNM, slow to be­come the vi­brant op­er­a­tion cit­i­zens’ pro­tec­tion re­quires with a strong­ly seat­ed Gov­ern­ment, has al­so cre­at­ed its own is­sues.

A front­lin­er’s in­ter­nal post claimed for­mer PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s pub­lic meet­ings showed a “di­vid­ed” PNM. They sug­gest­ed “open com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels be­tween past and present lead­ers giv­ing him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vise/guide” from “the back.”

The post was con­firmed by PNM of­fi­cials, who said they’re open to work­ing out frame­work/strate­gies for Row­ley’s in­put and this is be­ing done to avoid mem­bers’ con­cerns. They felt there was “a lot of room” for Row­ley to con­tribute as an el­der states­man but said it shouldn’t ap­pear to over­shad­ow the cur­rent leader, who had her own style.

PNM’s lag­ging pro­file has, how­ev­er, al­ready spo­ken to the suc­cess of the lead­er­ship’s per­for­mance, style, and con­tri­bu­tion to po­ten­tial­ly be­ing over­shad­owed.

Lat­est: the leader’s de­rail­ing of her im­por­tant Venezuela mo­tion. MPs’ priv­i­leges mo­tions against Gov­ern­ment’s high­est per­son­al­i­ties dis­missed af­ter fail­ure to em­ploy Par­lia­ment Stand­ing Or­ders.

What­ev­er for­mat’s fi­nalised, re­gard­less of PNM loss—and some PN­Mites know ex­act­ly why this oc­curred—Row­ley’s vast knowl­edge, en­er­gy and “fight­er” pro­file is an as­set in a sce­nario where PNM’s one week­ly me­dia brief­ing, in­ter­mit­tent re­leas­es and lim­it­ed halt­ing com­ments and ground­ed as­sets have weak­ened its pro­file, al­ready cre­at­ing its own frag­ment­ed pic­ture, with­out Gov­ern­ment’s at­tacks (or Row­ley’s events).

Arrange­ments for util­is­ing all re­sources should have been in place since the lead­er­ship changeover. Gov­ern­ment’s great­est strength so far has been the Op­po­si­tion’s weak­ness. No-one can blame the UNC alone for T&T’s is­sues if PNM’s not strong enough to alert and act on mat­ters. In­clud­ing its own.