You’d have heard Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh even be­fore he en­tered the Par­lia­ment Cham­ber on Wednes­day—so fruit­ful was his cough.

To PNM col­leagues, he hoarse­ly re­lat­ed his flu sto­ry and forc­ing him­self to at­tend Par­lia­ment. Luck­i­ly, he’d been spared Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (LG) plat­form du­ty re­cent­ly.

Wednes­day was the last Par­lia­ment sit­ting pre­ced­ing Mon­day’s LG elec­tion, the 13th since LG polls be­gan in 1971, ac­cord­ing to Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

And that day’s de­bate was every bit as rough as the LG cam­paign where every move has count­ed for the PNM Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion UNC, each try­ing to sway T&T’s 1.07 mil­lion reg­is­tered vot­ers in the 139 LG ar­eas. By 9.30 pm Mon­day, trends will in­di­cate which of the 339 can­di­dates were suc­cess­ful and whether vot­ers were in­ter­est­ed enough to sur­pass the 2016 LG turnout lev­el of 34.34 per cent. Or how much ap­a­thy, flu out­break or oth­er fac­tors re­duced it.

PNM’s Ed­mund Dil­lon had warned in Siparia on Mon­day, “This is war! It’s about num­bers!”

Dil­lon’s ad­vice that PN­Mites shouldn’t feel the UNC “wasn’t do­ing any­thing” was ac­knowl­edge­ment of PNM’s need to nudge bat­tle­ground vot­ers, re­veal­ing how it viewed UNC’s stealth cam­paign, less plat­form­ing, more “ground” out­reach. Whether UNC’s was as ef­fec­tive as PNM’s dou­bly high pro­file lies ahead.

PNM po­lit­i­cal weapon­ry has ranged from Par­lia­men­tary leg­is­la­tion to plat­form an­nounce­ments of plans and perks for the pub­lic, plus in­ves­ti­ga­tions. UNC’s now sub­ject to more probes than pa­tients at a PSA/OBG­YN fa­cil­i­ty. (ACP Jayson Forde said yes­ter­day, po­lice probe of the Christo­pher Wi­ley/Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca is­sue is still “on­go­ing”).

At PNM’s Diego Mar­tin meet­ing, Fi­nance’s Colm Im­bert ad­mit­ted, “We know we put you un­der pres­sure, it wasn’t easy, af­ter four years (pres­sure) we de­cid­ed we have to give back.”

At elec­tion time. Last Fri­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi told Par­lia­ment the cur­rent time was the “cor­rect” one for mar­i­jua­na de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion leg­is­la­tion. Three years af­ter this writer’s ex­clu­sive sto­ry where Al-Rawi re­vealed he was seek­ing to ex­am­ine sta­tis­ti­cal ground­work on de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion, and Dr Kei­th Row­ley im­me­di­ate­ly and cold­ly said it wasn’t dis­cussed with Cab­i­net and Gov­ern­ment “wasn’t ex­am­in­ing it at that point.” De­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion looks set to be­come land­mark leg­is­la­tion when Par­lia­ment re­turns to the Red House next year.

How­ev­er, ex­cess “of­fer­ings” have prompt­ed con­cerns about per­ceived in­duce­ments as well as poor, over­ly stri­dent cam­paign tones. Al­so: Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form, ex­pect­ed to have starred among is­sues, re­mains unim­ple­ment­ed and was swamped amid the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign mod­el.

PNM’s Pa­lo Seco meet­ing, which red jer­seys didn’t dom­i­nate, was timed and lo­cat­ed to “man­age” south­ern weak­ness­es fol­low­ing Petrotrin’s clo­sure, first an­niver­sary of which is to­day.

More than what each par­ty prof­fered/promised, is­sues al­so in­volves trust re­gard­ing both sides and lead­ers. Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, both fight­ing against falling back. Fur­ther.

If PNM’s “Get­ting it Done” an­them lacked cho­rus on crime, PNM may have ob­tained ex­cuse, oth­er than po­lice in­ef­fi­cien­cy, when both sides on Wednes­day un­suc­cess­ful­ly de­bat­ed the Bail bill. Iron­i­cal­ly though, Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s con­fes­sion that crime sta­tis­tics were “fright­en­ing” cast the biggest in­dict­ment on Gov­ern­ment, po­lice (and him­self). If the 484 mur­der toll sur­pass­es the 2018 lev­el (517) in the next 31 days, even LG vic­to­ry may not suf­fice.

With par­ties seek­ing to re­tain cor­po­ra­tions which they hold al­most equal­ly, bound­ary and oth­er changes, plus pres­ence of In­de­pen­dents in bat­tle­grounds have made PNM op­ti­mistic about Siparia, Sanger Grande and the Barataria seat UNC won in 2018. Row­ley ex­ult­ed in Thurs­day’s Grande turnout, where ex-UNC Cu­mu­to MP Collin Par­tap (in red and black) was up front, ap­plaud­ing as Row­ley lashed the PP/UNC.

PNM’s re­in­forc­ing Mara­cas/San­ta Mar­gari­ta where for­mer coun­cil­lor Mar­tin Gon­za­les’ con­test­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly. Whether UNC’s “Work­na­tion” thrust is bank­ing on eth­nic sup­port and dis­grun­tled PN­Mites, it’s re­in­forc­ing Siparia, Barataria and “work­ing” bat­tle­grounds.

How “tight”/tiebreak­er seats emerge, now de­pends on Mon­day’s ground games. PNM ad­vis­ers con­firm vic­to­ry won’t cause an ear­li­er 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion: they cit­ed Row­ley’s Diego Mar­tin state­ment that gen­er­al polls will be held when con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due.

As for who’ll be smil­ing,or be­ing sick, in Par­lia­ment next Fri­day, an­swers ahead on Mon­day.