If he’s rest­ing un­der self-quar­an­tine now, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was, how­ev­er, in his el­e­ment on Wednes­day when his sec­ond-term Cab­i­net was sworn in.

News that the COVID-19 cloud over T&T had touched UNC’s Dr Tim Gopeesingh was fol­lowed by Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment of learn­ing Thurs­day that he was ex­posed 10 days ago to a COVID pos­i­tive per­son and he’s test­ed neg­a­tive.

Many on both sides yes­ter­day hoped for a speedy re­cov­ery for Dr Gopeesingh. But apart from eyes peeled on COVID pro­to­cols, the po­lit­i­cal land­scape, post-elec­tion presents much for them all to con­sid­er.

The PNM even af­ter its vic­to­ry hasn’t stopped fight­ing—sig­nalling in­tent to go af­ter UNC’s Princes Town seat—and virtue of this par­tic­u­lar term will hard­ly be able to stop. It’s a term Row­ley has sig­nalled may be his last—and UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, hit by calls for her to re­sign, sub­se­quent­ly took a sim­i­lar line, al­lud­ing to what she projects for the “twi­light of her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer” and her lega­cy.

If they both stick to their re­spec­tive lines, this will in­deed be a lega­cy-build­ing term for each.

Row­ley’s ac­tions have in­di­cat­ed he recog­nis­es this. Turn­ing 71 in Oc­to­ber,—sur­viv­ing pre­vi­ous lead­ers who didn’t go past 69—his bid with a sec­ond term could al­so be his­toric and his sig­nal for suc­ces­sion plan­ning, ev­i­denced in some min­is­te­r­i­al choic­es, shows he hopes PNM gets a third.

Cab­i­net choic­es in­di­cate he wants to com­plete the un­fin­ished, tar­get­ting last term’s self and oth­er in­flict­ed ills. His ra­tio­nale of stick­ing with known ex­pe­ri­enced in­sti­tu­tion­al mem­o­ry—plus the un-faint­heart­ed—may be seen as nec­es­sary in the con­text of the flu­id COVID hit. Above all, his in­cum­bents come to the ta­ble with the hard lessons of the past term and elec­tion re­sults—and the fact they’re op­er­at­ing un­der their boss’ lega­cy term. Which may or may not have been why he re­mind­ed them on Wednes­day of their 60-month time­line and per­for­mance scruti­ny.

The PNM’s cam­paign of­fer­ings con­firmed the depth of lessons learned in­clud­ing in the tied Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions. While out­comes in To­co San­gre Grande, San Fer­nan­do West showed PNM did its home­work, the drop in votes, strong UNC show­ing in ar­eas and Moru­ga loss in­forms the par­ty of its chal­lenge even with suc­ces­sion plan­ning ev­i­dent.

The ap­point­ments of Pen­ny Beck­les, Dr Amery Browne and late leader Patrick Man­ning’s son Bri­an in Fi­nance—were clear­ly planned to weld the par­ty in­to a stronger ma­chine and set­tle its path in­to suc­ces­sion mode, herald­ing that PNM may be­come a new par­ty, some­thing many vot­ers seek. And which may be part of Row­ley’s lega­cy.

As­pects of the Sport, Agri­cul­ture and Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­istries will cater to one of T&T’s biggest is­sues—youth. Next month’s 2021 Bud­get will shed light on oth­er ar­eas—and the ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of re­tain­ing key in­cum­bents.

As the most chal­leng­ing Bud­get to for­mu­late it will have to bal­ance glob­al and lo­cal eco­nom­ic de­mands and so­lu­tions along­side po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions of a Gov­ern­ment need­ing to soothe a state, lev­el the play­ing field for the sur­vival of all —and tar­get­ting a third term. Row­ley’s lega­cy al­so ex­tends to con­sol­i­dat­ing PNM’s po­si­tion for To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly polls ex­pect­ed Jan­u­ary in a sce­nario where work’s still need­ed.

Even be­fore be­ing ap­point­ed min­is­ter were re­mind­ed of what re­sis­tance lies ahead (not to be con­fused with Spray Painter Re­sis­tance.)

UNC’s Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­ten­tion to head the strongest Op­po­si­tion is a nod to her lega­cy and swat at com­ments against her team whom T&T col­lec­tive­ly re­ject­ed. Her re­cent ad­dress (be­lat­ed­ly) pitched uni­ty al­so used by US De­moc­rats star Ka­mala Har­ris who’s il­lu­mi­nat­ing Amer­i­ca’s land­scape.

Whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­mis­sion that she’s in the twi­light of her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer may trig­ger calls for her to stay re­mains ahead. Her 18 per­son­al­ly ap­proved MPs who sup­port for her, com­mand cer­tain con­stituen­cies., MPs and mem­bers will have to as­cer­tain the na­tion­al land­scape be­fore they de­cide in UNC elec­tions what to of­fer T&T.

Even win­ning Moru­ga and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s suc­ces­sion plan­ning via her MP choic­es— they will know much of UNC’s cul­ture must change for it to be seen na­tion­al­ly as vi­able.