With 2025 as a year which will be re­mem­bered in pol­i­tics for the word “Kam­la!”, the 2026 road has been seed­ed by all that has oc­curred in the last 12 months and be­fore.

And cer­tain oth­er ... words will be iden­ti­fied with 2026.

The April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion marked a wa­ter­shed point: vot­ers parked the 10-year-old “ac­quain­tance” with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment at the curb and board­ed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ yel­low WIN “taxi.”

Now, with PNM as chal­lenged Op­po­si­tion seek­ing to pro­tect the pub­lic and UNC as Gov­ern­ment fac­ing chal­lenges seek­ing same, 2026 is ex­pect­ed to see in­creased fire­pow­er from each, con­fronting re­spec­tive is­sues.

Pin­na­cle po­lit­i­cal year 2025 start­ed with ac­tion, with the cre­ation of po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry by the par­ty leader. Then, PNM leader and prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley de­clar­ing out of con­test­ing in his own his­toric process, suc­ces­sor emerg­ing with min­is­ter in the PM’s of­fice Stu­art Young and frag­men­ta­tion with­in PNM. Mean­while, UNC’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests con­sol­i­dat­ed with small par­ties and big unions - win­ning.

All fe­male lead­ers emerged.

Prime Min­is­ter/UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, 73, sec­ond fe­male to be­come PM, whose ac­tions con­firm her warn­ing that to­day’s Kam­la (2.0) isn’t Kam­la 2010. UNC’s Jear­lean John, 65, act­ing PM in Oc­to­ber. Op­po­si­tion PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, 64, PNM’s first fe­male leader, bal­anc­ing new in­car­na­tion with rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Speedy Gov­ern­ment over­haul of PNM’s process­es ex­tend­ed from per­son­nel to pan sup­port; UNC/US One Love can­celled Venezuela and Cari­com’s neigh­bourly sta­tus and re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty.

PM’s “Per­sa­da Non Gra­ta,” where Venezuela’s con­cerned, with An­tigua/Bar­bu­da’s con­cerns, in­clud­ing omi­nous re­minders of the high trade T&T’ re­ceived from Cari­com’s sac­ri­fices, sourc­ing T&T for sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Com­pet­ing yel­low and red po­lit­i­cal colours—rich gold be­tween—fad­ed to a grey Christ­mas af­ter thou­sands were fired or forced out; and T&T/Venezuela hos­til­i­ties fol­lowed align­ment of TT/US colours, red, white, black and blue.

Af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Iron La­dy tones and es­cape from Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges probe on ban­ter ba­sis, it’s ahead whether more diplo­ma­cy—or less reck­less­ness—on every­thing, fig­ures among Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 “De­liv­ery” theme. Chief aide Bar­ry Padarath’s in­sight that she won’t ac­cept ex­cus­es casts cu­rios­i­ty on team abil­i­ty so far.

With T&T in “in­ter­est­ing times”, how 2026 flows will be in­flu­enced by fac­tors in­clud­ing:

• Whether the con­tro­ver­sial US mil­i­tary radar in­stil­la­tion in To­ba­go and the PM’s equal­ly con­tro­ver­sial state­ments hurts Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s TPP for the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion - and the im­pact of her telling dis­missal of Au­gus­tine’s an­ti-radar views on To­bag­o­ni­ans’ con­fi­dence in her, Au­gus­tine and au­ton­o­my.

• Im­pact of Wednes­day’s US or­der for forces to shift al­most ex­clu­sive­ly to “quar­an­ti­ning” Venezue­lan oil, war­ring on the econ­o­my rather than via mil­i­tary op­tions, pro­ject­ing “calami­ty” by late Jan­u­ary. A sit­u­a­tion mak­ing T&T’s US mil­i­tary radar sig­nif­i­cant.

• Whether the State of Emer­gency ends mid- Jan­u­ary or is ex­tend­ed by Gov­ern­ment’s spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty hold­ing. And if (Home­land) se­cu­ri­ty im­proves.

• Leg­isla­tive agen­da when Par­lia­ment re­sumes, and how Gov­ern­ment’s strong 26-seat ma­jor­i­ty fares among the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors’ bul­wark con­cern­ing spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty mat­ters. Bills in­clude in­creas­ing the age to 25 for weed/al­co­hol us­age and gam­bling, noise- re­duc­ing fire­works, bev­er­age con­tain­er/re­cy­cling

• How US/Venezuela/T&T ten­sions im­pact Car­ni­val.

• Pro­grammes re­plac­ing CEPEP and URP. Start­ing de­sali­nat­ed plants in Moru­ga, Ma­yaro, Char­lot­teville: sys­tem­at­ic changes at T&TEC, Pow­er­gen. Restora­tion, main­te­nance of road, bridges, rivers and in­fra­struc­ture.

• The num­bers say­ing “Thank-Coo!” to the am­bidex­trous Fi­nance Min­is­ter man­ag­ing promised pay­ments, re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, bor­row­ings, re­pay­ments, Forex, Moody’s, Stan­dard and Poor’s - and more.

• Petrotrin’s re­fin­ery part­ner and if pro­pos­als arise from US com­pa­nies.

• Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion re­struc­tur­ing; probe out­come re­gard­ing Vic­to­ria Keyes apart­ments owned by ex-St Vin­cent PM Ralph Gon­za­les’s rel­a­tives.

• Whether any­one re­ceives PM’s BH (buss head) dis­ci­pline, when a sec­ond Cab­i­net re­align­ment aris­es or how many fall from “Hon. Min­is­ter” to “Dear Val­ued Em­ploy­ee.”

• How many more T&T work­ers will hear the rest of the “15 Ways To say ‘You’re Fired’!” pub­li­ca­tion af­ter Num­ber Eight has been used.

• How PNM re­fines pre­sen­ta­tion, and chan­nels for­mer head Row­ley’s acu­men ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, like re­tired Ja­maican PM, PJ Pat­ter­son, who con­tin­ues speak­ing.

If 2025 be­gan with un­lim­it­ed po­lit­i­cal fire­works and ends Wednes­day with lim­it, af­ter New Year’s cups are raised, 2026 will re­veal if kind­ness was in play. Or if as chair­man of UNC coali­tion part­ner COP (and PNM) in­sin­u­ate, T&T re­mains in un­cer­tain­ty.