In 24 hours, they’ll be off on an ex­tend­ed 19-month race, tak­ing T&T with them.

If the Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led PNM Gov­ern­ment and the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Op­po­si­tion UNC had a hec­tic 2023, each will be seek­ing per­for­mance uptick in 2024, the cam­paign­ing lead-in year to­wards the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Re­gard­less of Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley and UNC leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s New Year’s mes­sages, 2024 di­rec­tion is clear. De­f­i­n­i­tion was ac­knowl­edged on De­cem­ber 10 when UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal promised: “It’ll be heat in the pol­i­tics for 2024—fire from above and be­low. Kei­th Row­ley will not have one hour’s rest when the UNC takes him on...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly added that 2024 will be “an ex­cit­ing ... make or break year.”

Every step PNM, UNC and re­spec­tive as­so­ciates take in 2024 will be cal­cu­lat­ed to aid re­spec­tive chances with the pub­lic, which has 19 months of op­por­tu­ni­ty—as fo­cus of po­lit­i­cal court­ing—to have their views heed­ed by a Gov­ern­ment aim­ing to re­coup ground and Op­po­si­tion tar­get­ing na­tion­al ex­pan­sion. Both in po­lit­i­cal do-or-die mode now.

The 2024 cam­paign­ing na­ture was ap­par­ent with the Diego Mar­tin over­pass “Christ­mas gift” and Drag­on Gas deal an­nounce­ment, giv­ing T&T ear­li­er launch of the 2024 Chi­nese Year of the Drag­on, than the tra­di­tion­al Feb­ru­ary launch.

If the 30-year Drag­on Field lease is a PNM elec­tion cam­paign trump card, with the time­line to first gas rac­ing against the two-year US OFAC li­cence time­frame, it re­mains ahead what may hap­pen with the li­cence if 2024 US Pres­i­den­tial elec­tions changes the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion.

With a pub­lic re­cal­i­brat­ed by COVID and crime on­slaught to self-preser­va­tion sur­vivor mode, Row­ley, who’s lament­ed peo­ple’s self-fo­cus, must know the Drag­on an­nounce­ment—even as Christ­mas gift—re­quires more be­yond promise of “a brighter fu­ture.” Drag­on Gas won’t im­me­di­ate­ly cush­ion T&T lifestyles.This year marks the last time some en­joy cer­tain lee­way with a pos­si­ble per­fect storm ahead: prop­er­ty tax, T&TEC rate hike, home­own­ers in­sur­ance rate in­crease, pos­si­ble in­fla­tion, wire­less ca­ble high­er rates, WASA job cuts.

Prop­er­ty tax is this year’s pre-GE is­sue, with Gov­ern­ment en­dur­ing pub­lic re­ac­tion on val­u­a­tions.

Fi­nance’s ad­mis­sion that some may be in­cor­rect or, im­prop­er, due to the new sys­tem—a soft­ened po­si­tion—pro­vides grounds for chal­lenge of ques­tion­able as­sess­ments.

Whether the $400 mil­lion pro­ject­ed tax in­come is worth the po­lit­i­cal risk to Gov­ern­ment—which may gam­ble the sit­u­a­tion set­tles lat­er this year—af­ter UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark said the Op­po­si­tion doesn’t sup­port this “PNM ver­sion” of the tax and would “re­place” it, UNC’s “re­place­ment” cam­paign of­fer­ing is now ex­pect­ed.

Be­yond ques­tion on Cab­i­net tweak­ing, UNC, whose Na­tex in­ter­nal is due in 2024, will field GE nom­i­na­tions in earnest when that dead­line’s an­nounced. Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly will of­fi­cial­ly an­nounce in a cou­ple weeks that he’s not con­test­ing in 2025. This, af­ter ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences with UNC’s lead­er­ship.

With 2024 a record-break­ing year with elec­tions in 50 coun­tries, the back­wash of those events—and T&T cit­i­zens’ ex­pe­ri­ences—will shape T&T’s 2024 land­scape. To­wards GE 2025.