If deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde’s had an easy time pre­sid­ing over the Low­er House in re­cent months, yes­ter­day’s sit­ting shoved him in­to over­drive in dis­ci­plin­ing MPs.

UNC and PNM MPs were busy ver­bal­ly fight­ing each oth­er re­gard­ing UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal’s mo­tion on House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George. The UNC tried to slam-dunk her in­to ig­nominy. But the rul­ing PNM praised her tenure to the rooftops.

“…Over­ruled!” Forde ad­mon­ished on umpteen at­tempts by UNC and PNM MPs tak­ing turns try­ing to shut the oth­er side down as their MPs spoke.

In be­tween, Forde reached lib­er­al­ly for “... Re­tract!” and “Ex­punge …” or­ders.

Rag­ing tones. Loud voic­es. Stren­u­ous ar­gu­ments. All kinds of rules quot­ed as MPs trad­ed words.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley tried to ver­bal­ly shred Mooni­lal’s mo­tion, at­tribut­ing the UNC gus­to to want­i­ng to save their can­di­da­cy chances.

“This is the B team, All a dem…. guar­an­teed gone! Ex­cept (him),” Row­ley thun­dered, point­ing at UNC’s David Lee.

“Look at your team …” re­tort­ed UNC’s Tim Gopeesingh, whose ar­gu­ment may not have been lim­it­ed to is­sues con­cern­ing PNM’s PoS South and D’Abadie O’Meara can­di­dates.

The de­bate demon­strat­ed that no­body’s wait­ing for any elec­tion bell, whether that’s in two weeks when Par­lia­ment be­gins the re­cess, or af­ter. Spec­u­la­tion on dates con­tin­ued af­ter PNM of­fi­cials met with the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) yes­ter­day.

But the sea­son’s clear: com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre open­ings (PNM), drain clean­ing pho­to ops (UNC). And new par­ties be­ing an­nounced (Mikela Pan­day’s Pa­tri­ot­ic Front).

Mooni­lal’s mo­tion sought to re­vive the al­leged Paria/Venezuela fu­el is­sue af­ter US Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo’s com­men­da­tion of T&T’s Venezue­lan refugee man­age­ment. Com­men­da­tion apart, in­for­ma­tion re­ceived yes­ter­day con­firm T&T’s is­sues with the US are still live, if not front burn­er.

There was al­so Fi­nance’s Colm Im­bert at­tempt to over­come doubts on his re­cent over­ly op­ti­mistic mid-year re­view, boast­ing of an over­sub­scribed US$500m bond in record three hours.

Gov­ern­ment al­so ben­e­fit­ted from full Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’ sup­port for its an­ti-Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence bill. The leg­is­la­tion pos­i­tive­ly spot­light­ed the pro­file of its pre­sen­ter, Gen­der Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy. This, at a time when re­ports from her To­ba­go East area show PNM striv­ing to im­prove its stand­ing in a make-or-break elec­tion bat­tle­ground.

Con­cerns al­so linger in some PNM ar­eas about vote with­hold­ing due to can­di­da­cy, rep­re­sen­ta­tion, un­em­ploy­ment and oth­er is­sues. If the PNM’s pre-poll im­age is droop­ing it’s main­ly due to in­ter­nal is­sues more than Op­po­si­tion ef­fi­cien­cy. Re­flect­ing on par­ty man­age­ment.

The land­scape oth­er­wise:

• Out­go­ing San Juan MP Fuad Khan as­sist­ing can­di­date Sad­dam Ho­sein, be­lieve it’s pos­si­ble for Ho­sein to hold the seat which Khan won by 550 votes. As for im­pact on res­i­dent Mus­lims re­gard­ing the al­leged smear over Ho­sein’s lifestyle, “They’ll have to make their own judge­ment, but I don’t think it’ll af­fect us,” Khan said.

• PNM’s in­tro­duc­tion of its To­co can­di­date was high­light­ed Thurs­day by a “bounce-up in Va­len­cia with op­po­si­tion sup­port­ers.

• In a week where the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence bill fig­ured, UNC of­fi­cials say a re­cent­ly-an­nounced young can­di­date fac­ing is­sues be­cause of al­leged pho­tos will tell her sto­ry of an al­leged abu­sive re­la­tion­ship. They said she has back­ing of cer­tain cor­po­ra­tion and labour mem­bers. They ex­pect no back­lash from her sit­u­a­tion, not­ing AG Faris Al-Rawi’s De­cem­ber 2019 blast against so­cial me­dia posts fol­low­ing cir­cu­la­tion of al­leged pho­tos of UNC Ch­agua­nas may­or Van­dana Mo­hit.

• San Fer­nan­do West’s in­creas­ing­ly busy with PNM’s Al-Rawi and UNC Sean Sobers’ walk­a­bouts.

• PNM’s La Brea unit says many have “come around” af­ter prob­lem­at­ic se­lec­tion process. A meet­ing was held yes­ter­day with some still tot­ing resid­ual dis­con­tent. For­mer favourite Robert Le Hunte says he’s tried as­sist­ing to­ward peace.

• Spec­u­la­tion on whether for­mer UNC Pan­day min­is­ters—who at­tend­ed Bas­deo Pan­day’s Feb­ru­ary meet­ing—will as­sist Pa­tri­ot­ic Front’s cam­paign­ing and if this could im­pact.

While PNM’s new faces—in­clud­ing Pen­ny Beck­les’ re­turn—has prompt­ed suc­ces­sion plan­ning de­bate, the ex­tent of changes among UNC MPs will re­veal the depth of suc­ces­sion plan­ning there. On Thurs­day the UNC leader re­in­forced the need for a new gen­er­a­tion. The ap­point­ment of busi­ness­man Robert Amar as a sen­a­tor, al­so prompt­ed spec­u­la­tion whether—if UNC’s MPs may be large­ly new —it is pos­si­ble that UNC gov­ern­ment min­is­ters may be sen­a­tors. And whether this may in­clude for­mer MPs.

What­ev­er changes may be im­me­di­ate­ly ahead, more will cer­tain­ly fol­low.