In the wis­dom of Di­vali’s light, both Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley echoed sim­i­lar notes in their re­spec­tive speech­es at the Di­vali Na­gar.

Both cit­ed the world’s tur­bu­lence, the need for in­tro­spec­tion and us­ing Di­vali’s holy teach­ings. Views in com­mon that US De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Ka­mala Har­ris and US Re­pub­li­can con­tender Don­ald Trump would hard­ly hold.

The world awaits the out­come of Tues­day’s bat­tle be­tween both. Trump is fight­ing an­oth­er woman. But this time, Har­ris, a woman of colour, is in a cam­paign which has seen spec­tac­u­lar lows and highs – ridicu­lous to sub­lime. Each side has played to Amer­i­cans’ fears and con­cerns. Di­vi­sion and uni­ty. Pos­i­tive progress and neg­a­tive regress. Themes T&T is fa­mil­iar with and faces ahead.

Over 60 mil­lion Amer­i­cans vot­ed up to yes­ter­day. CBS News re­port­ed Tues­day that a high­er num­ber (just un­der 11 mil­lion) of De­moc­rats com­pared to near­ly 10 mil­lion Re­pub­li­cans vot­ed. Eyes are on fe­male and Lati­no vot­ers.

It will be known im­mi­nent­ly where T&T’s head­ing with the US. The Gov­ern­ment has a his­to­ry with both can­di­dates. From the neg­a­tives with Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion, from Caribbean Li­ma group lead­ers’ di­vi­sion re­gard­ing Venezuela and the Sec­re­tary of State’s Ja­maica vis­it with cer­tain Caribbean gov­ern­ments, plus T&T’s des­ig­na­tion in the 2019 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port, to US con­dem­na­tion re­gard­ing Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez’s T&T vis­it, as well as this coun­try’s con­cerns on the 2020 Venezue­lan refugee wave.

The pos­i­tives with Har­ris’ tenure re­gard­ing T&T and Cari­com, come from Row­ley’s COVID-19 vac­cine talks (2021), meet­ing Cari­com lead­ers on en­er­gy, fi­nance and food se­cu­ri­ty (2022), se­cu­ri­ty as­sis­tance (2023) and Row­ley’s meet­ing (2024) with her on mat­ters in­clud­ing Venezuela.

The Biden-Har­ris ad­min­is­tra­tion fa­cil­i­tat­ed T&T with as­sis­tance on crime, se­cu­ri­ty and drug in­ter­dic­tion ef­forts, in­clud­ing Row­ley’s suc­cess in get­ting a new US pol­i­cy se­vere­ly re­strict­ing firearm/am­mu­ni­tion ex­ports to T&T and oth­er coun­tries; plus T&T’s OFAC li­cence for the Drag­on and Man­akin-Cocuina fields. Nei­ther the Gov­ern­ment nor the Op­po­si­tion shared thoughts on Tues­day’s out­come.

Mean­while, the PNM’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion showed a unit­ed face af­ter its Oc­to­ber 19 Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing where PNM labour of­fi­cer Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings re­port­ed­ly braced Row­ley on the PNM’s can­celled con­ven­tion/in­ter­nal elec­tion, and “mixed mes­sages” on his lead­er­ship. Bap­tiste-Primus, who was in front at the Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion, was hailed by speak­er Sen­a­tor Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, who de­clared the PNM is “alive, well and fam­i­ly.”

A leaked video of the PNM’s Laven­tille West Women’s League show­ing one vote for MP Fitzger­ald Hinds’ elec­tion can­di­da­cy sig­nalled cer­tain loop­holes in the PNM. The par­ty’s now on no­tice of ear­ly elec­tions af­ter act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s six hints in his Di­vali ad­dress - and Young has been ap­point­ed to act again dur­ing Row­ley’s Bar­ba­dos trip.

The lat­est among UNC stal­warts wish­ing to re­turn for elec­tions is for­mer Cou­va North MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al, who said Wednes­day: “I emailed the UNC’s leader a month ago of­fer­ing my­self for a mar­gin­al seat in Cen­tral or North - not South. I re­ceived feed­back from sources to ‘hold my hand’. As a UNC life­time mem­ber, and ex­pe­ri­enced ex-MP and min­is­ter, it’s my du­ty to of­fer my­self, since I’ve now de­vel­oped a na­tion­al pro­file. This is be­yond is­sues with the lead­er­ship - the par­ty’s big­ger than any­one.

“If noth­ing hap­pens by year end, I’ll weigh my op­tions and see if I’ll work with small­er par­ties which con­tact­ed me. His­to­ry’s proven UNC can nev­er win on its own but UNC’s my home.”

For­mer Barataria/San­Juan MP Fuad Khan said Wednes­day he’ll file nom­i­na­tion pa­pers with the UNC.

“It’s the cor­rect thing to do. I haven’t heard from the leader.”

An­oth­er for­mer min­is­ter, Vas­ant Bharath, has main­tained that if prop­er­ly con­fig­ured, the UNC is T&T’s on­ly op­tion. In­ter­est in work­ing with UNC, in­clud­ing con­test­ing a seat, was re­in­forced last week when Bharath with­drew his 2022 le­gal ac­tion against po­lit­i­cal leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar for al­leged “false, slan­der­ous, mis­lead­ing defam­a­to­ry state­ments” against him. Bharath had de­nied in­volve­ment with ex-Ca­roni work­ers’ protest re­gard­ing lands, but Per­sad-Bisses­sar had made re­marks, call­ing Bharath’s name. His le­gal ac­tion is now set­tled “to the sat­is­fac­tion of their re­spec­tive po­si­tions,” it has been con­firmed.

The HOPE, which is still to con­firm can­di­dates, has in­formed the UNC’s es­tranged MPs that its gate is “al­ways open.” UNC’s Rush­ton Paray says he’s main­tained UNC must re­main open to di­a­logue with all. “Once there’s na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment in­ter­est, the UNC’s the um­brel­la for such talks. I still be­lieve it’s the best ve­hi­cle to good gov­er­nance,” Paray said.