Gail Alexan­der

Tra­garete Road was traf­fic-free min­utes be­fore mid­night on Thurs­day - but so­cial dis­tanc­ing was hard­ly part of the Char­lotte Street bus­tle yes­ter­day.

A woman on Duke Street de­cid­ed to snort the con­tents of her nose out as she walked. Peo­ple ne­go­ti­at­ed the pave­ment with this much space be­tween.

If the State of Emer­gency’s re­moval was greet­ed with cau­tion on some fronts and less else­where, it loaned the Op­po­si­tion po­lit­i­cal op­por­tu­ni­ty to query whether its end two weeks ear­li­er than sched­uled was for To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly polls cam­paign­ing.

Heavy play for the up­com­ing last three weeks of cam­paign­ing was al­ready pre­viewed in Mon­day’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cise - an ap­palling lack of COVID pro­to­cols among par­ties.

In Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in fight­back form to UNC whip David Lee’s fo­cus on the THA elec­tion, said, “(You think­ing) 10 pm to 5 am is when they cam­paign in To­ba­go – ab­solute dotish­ness! You take no part in the elec­tion in To­ba­go, you hide be­hind the PDP, you can’t find a can­di­date to put up – but you know ‘bout can­vass­ing in To­ba­go! No­body can­vass­es at night!”

Row­ley’s hard­ly alone in his ex­pressed wish for an el­e­va­tion of the thought process in T&T. But he should have a good idea of what de­trac­tors will shout af­ter to­day’s 6 pm PNM meet­ing at Ma­son Hall, where To­ba­go PN­Mites said he will be speak­ing.

That Row­ley will speak from his birth­place lo­ca­tion - which op­po­nent PDP holds - telegraphs the fight fac­ing PNM af­ter its four-seat slide in the Jan­u­ary THA polls. On Wednes­day, he’d said T&T is on a dif­fer­ent plane now, not to ex­pect lock­down “the storm is with us and we’re go­ing full speed ahead.”

COVID apart, that in­cludes THA polls. Some from To­ba­go busi­ness­es and oth­er stra­ta be­lieve the ground’s shift­ing to the PDP - but al­so feel PDP leader Wat­son Duke’s “colour­ful” per­son­al­i­ty and se­ces­sion plans may be to PNM’s ad­van­tage in the large­ly PNM-PDP race of 45 can­di­dates from four par­ties.

How much for­mer PN­Mite Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus’s 13 In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance can­di­dates split PNM votes re­mains ahead. IDA in­tends con­test­ing the three new south/west seats where PNM’s strong. There’s a PNM/PDP/IDA fight there and a four-way fight with Uni­ty of the Peo­ple in Buc­coo.

But IDA’s not con­test­ing in PDP turf Belle Gar­den and Rox­bor­ough, leav­ing a PNM/PDP race. How­ev­er, Tsoiafatt-An­gus says there’s no arrange­ment with PDP or PNM.

Al­so to be con­sid­ered are To­ba­go par­ty lead­ers’ per­son­al­i­ty is­sues, To­ba­go’s youth to whom PDP’s an­ti-es­tab­lish­ment pitch is geared; those want­i­ng change but not what’s of­fered, and cul­tur­al is­sues with how To­ba­go West views East coun­try.

For Row­ley, a Ma­son Hall ap­pear­ance - in PDP East “turf” - her­alds his per­son­al bat­tle to re­take ground in that part of his birth is­land. It’s nec­es­sary: re­sult from this sec­ond THA poll in 11 months will stamp a pro­ject­ed vic­to­ry (or de­feat) ahead for one par­ty in the 2022 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls and Gen­er­al Elec­tions. If re­sults go against PNM, UNC, will im­me­di­ate­ly yell “Gen­er­al Elec­tions now!” and warpath its way through the term.

As Gov­ern­ment grap­ples with chal­lenges un­prece­dent­ed for any ad­min­is­tra­tion, UNC’s bat­tle lan­guage is more em­bold­ened – bait­ing Row­ley – and its To­ba­go links less hid­den. De­spite COVID cas­es spik­ing, UNC’s break­ing state­ments – on Row­ley’s al­leged friends and the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion – have been be­yond the COVID crux.

The PSC’s be­gan with calls from at­tor­neys for for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith for the CoP mer­it list. That’s amid oth­er loose ends left by the last PSC, in­clud­ing how Row­ley’s loss of con­fi­dence com­plaint to the last PSC on Grif­fith was han­dled. And where that stood, if – as Grif­fith’s lawyer Lar­ry Lal­la says – the PSC said on Au­gust 15 that Grif­fith had main­tained its con­fi­dence as best fit­ted for Com­mis­sion­er pend­ing se­lec­tion com­ple­tion.

But for cit­i­zens now chal­lenged with tak­ing greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their COVID safe­ty, the stats are grim. Vac­ci­nat­ed be­ing three per cent of deaths. House­holds are in­fect­ed. T&T’s 30 per cent away from herd im­mu­ni­ty. Deaths head­ing for 2,000.

How the storm (Row­ley ref­er­enced) is han­dled will in­volve faith in in­di­vid­ual com­pe­tence, not po­lit­i­cal fate. Or po­lit­i­cal hate from some plat­forms.