Yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment agen­da fea­tured Op­po­si­tion busi­ness, but the UNC Gov­ern­ment had its cel­e­bra­to­ry mo­ment fol­low­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry of St Vin­cent’s New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, whose sig­na­ture colour is yel­low like the UNC’s.

Thurs­day’s NDP vic­to­ry came af­ter 24 years, just as the UNC’s did af­ter 15 years. Both par­ties field­ed peo­ple-cen­tred, change-dri­ven cam­paigns and had is­sues with for­mer SVG Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves.

With winds of change blow­ing re­gion­al­ly, in­clud­ing UNC and NDP vic­to­ries, Mon­day will give the out­comes for St Lu­cia’s gen­er­al elec­tion and the leader of its main op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Work­ers Par­ty, Al­lan Chas­tanet, who spoke at UNC’s March 2024 an­ti-crime fo­rum.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ mo­tion on T&T-Venezuela is­sues and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ments might have brought yes­ter­day’s de­bate to rel­e­vance re­gard­ing the now tout­ed “Radar­gate” if Beck­les had not flubbed her in­tro­duc­tion with the wrong state­ment, end­ing her con­tri­bu­tion pre­ma­ture­ly and plum­met­ing the PNM’s stocks.

Al­so in flub­bing phase, how­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s po­si­tion that T&T has not been asked by the US to be a base for a war against Venezuela has worn thin af­ter con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments on US Marines’ To­ba­go pres­ence and even­tu­al ad­mis­sion of a plan re­gard­ing run­way, road and radar, “to help im­prove our sur­veil­lance and the in­tel­li­gence of the radars for nar­co-traf­fick­ers in our wa­ters and out­side our wa­ters.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lan­guage echoed the US stock re­sponse line for its an­ti-drug car­tel mis­sion, per­ceived as a covert move for Venezue­lan regime change. Her pref­ace that the in­for­ma­tion arose “On fur­ther en­quiries” raised fur­ther con­cerns about her po­si­tion as ac­tive Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man, who had met on Tues­day with the Chair­man of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen­er­al Dan Caine.

De­spite se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters tout­ing “Need to Know” stamp, amid US-Venezuela ten­sions, in­for­ma­tion seep­age re­gard­ing US mil­i­tary in­volve­ment lo­cal­ly, mak­ing flip-flops the news, has kept the pub­lic on edge.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s flip-flop­ping on an is­sue which puts T&T ful­ly in­to the road of host­ing US ac­tiv­i­ty, for what­ev­er pur­pose, holds nil re­in­force­ment of cred­i­bil­i­ty for fu­ture state­ments, which ap­pear will con­tin­ue in trick­le-down mode.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, left out of the in­fo on the project on his own turf, has been em­bar­rassed by the Gov­ern­ment’s uni­lat­er­al sanc­tion of the ven­ture, now viewed as a sig­nal of promised au­ton­o­my and rap­port with To­ba­go. Worse, since To­ba­go’s Ash­worth Jack is in the OPM as li­ai­son co­or­di­na­tor (To­ba­go Af­fairs).

How US mil­i­tary-in­stalled radar aligns with Au­gus­tine’s po­si­tion against in­stal­la­tions that draw To­ba­go in­to US-Venezuela is­sues re­mains ahead, along with ef­fects on his par­ty in the THA’s elec­tion cli­mate.

Like Au­gus­tine seek­ing full dis­clo­sure from the PM and min­is­ters, cit­i­zens need­ed con­fir­ma­tion: de­tails on the need, sta­tus as mil­i­tary radar, us­age plans, whether the US will op­er­ate it, cov­er­age ex­tent, T&T-US con­di­tions for in­stal­la­tion, road and air­port work de­tails, if T&T was next af­ter An­tigua’s re­jec­tion, and if the radar is on the scale re­quest­ed of Grena­da, which has so far broad­ly sig­nalled “No thanks”.

To­ba­go de­vel­op­ments arose af­ter the US des­ig­nat­ed the Venezue­lan Car­tel de Soles a ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion, per­ceived as a ba­sis for ac­tion in its car­tel mis­sion, with hints of a “new phase” of op­er­a­tion and main­tained US force pos­ture. Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s radar ad­mis­sion ar­rived the same day the US Pres­i­dent alert­ed ac­tion start­ing “very soon” to stop sus­pect­ed Venezue­lan drug traf­fick­ers on land.

Fum­bling on the radar, whether ac­ci­dent or de­sign, was the lat­est back-ped­alling. A vow not to sup­press civ­il so­ci­ety’s voic­es was fol­lowed by dis­plea­sure with some blog­gers. “Sic­c­ing” US visa re­moval re­gard­ing “mis­in­for­ma­tion”. Al­leged “cuff down” warn­ing to the PNM’s Colm Im­bert and threat to “buss” er­rant min­is­ters’ heads shred­ded the UNC’s an­ti-vi­o­lence rep­u­ta­tion.

Main­tain­ing bal­ance with pub­lic ser­vants’ ne­go­ti­a­tions, T&TEC CO­LA pay­out and lap­tops next to ful­fil is the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, where to­mor­row’s OW­TU an­niver­sary clo­sure func­tion will nudge re­open­ing (and union bid for op­er­a­tion).

With the im­mi­nent THA elec­tion date, ex­pect­ed mid-Jan­u­ary, PDP leader Wat­son Duke’s de­ci­sion will ar­rive be­fore Nom­i­na­tion Day on whether he will de­fend Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle af­ter rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with Au­gus­tine and af­ter Jack said Duke should not con­test.

Yes­ter­day’s Rur­al De­vel­op­ment launch of a team to re­view mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties’ bound­aries al­so shows the Gov­ern­ment prep­ping for the 2027 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls. Af­ter changes in and out of T&T, it is left to be seen when oth­er ex­pect­ed shifts arise.