As fate and the par­lia­men­tary va­ca­tion sched­ule would have it, PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ters were saved on Thurs­day from fac­ing any "mu­sic"—and tough ques­tions at the week­ly me­dia brief­ing—on PNM deputy leader Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald fol­low­ing her ar­rest that day.

There was nei­ther Cab­i­net nor any me­dia brief­ing. Mc­Don­ald was the one ac­tu­al­ly fac­ing the "mu­sic"—on al­leged mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds—and col­leagues down to Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley were stay­ing in re­spec­tive cor­ners as po­lice cli­maxed the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion probe start­ed in 2016.

As the biggest po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for the year, it's the end of a long road which some be­lieve should have been ex­pect­ed. A de­vel­op­ment shak­ing both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion. No one's even joked about the pos­si­ble blight­ed au­ra of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion post pre­vi­ous­ly held by Max­ie Cuffie who had suf­fered a stroke in 2017, and by Mc­Don­ald whose tenure in the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion has been tur­bu­lent.

Her predica­ment has threat­ened Gov­ern­ment's care­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed an­ti-cor­rup­tion im­age and it has re­newed scruti­ny of Row­ley's man­age­ment and judg­ment skills. He has stood by her against al­le­ga­tions and probes ap­point­ing her a min­is­ter three times in the four-year term; fir­ing her twice due to mis­con­duct and oth­er mat­ters.

Af­ter the last ap­point­ment in 2018, Row­ley was asked in Par­lia­ment if he re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and/or Fraud Squad clear­ing Mc­Don­ald. He said on­ly he could ap­point Cab­i­net mem­bers and that wasn't de­pen­dent on any com­mis­sion let­ter. He was silent on the po­lice, how­ev­er, and re­cent de­vel­op­ments have re­vived the ques­tion of whether it was wise to have ap­point­ed her in the face of an on-go­ing po­lice probe; an ac­tion which in­di­cat­ed ei­ther con­tempt for po­lice work or trust for a pos­i­tive out­come.

On Thurs­day, Row­ley's re­spons­es on Mc­Don­ald, giv­en in a sub­dued tone, still left queries on why he took the risk. Row­ley's boast that his Gov­ern­ment would de­fend no wrong-do­ing is now be­ing tru­ly test­ed with the most acute case, clos­est to PNM's up­per­most lev­el.

With no sign of res­ig­na­tion (from her) or dis­missal (by him), his Gov­ern­ment and par­ty's po­lit­i­cal pro­file are mired with the mis­for­tunes of their deputy leader, leg­isla­tive group head and MP for prime PNM turf once held by no less than PNM founder Dr Er­ic Williams. How the probe's out­come—and con­se­quent ac­tion by ei­ther Mc­Don­ald or Row­ley—af­fects PNM's for­tune in POS South re­mains ahead.

Mc­Don­ald's pre­de­ces­sor MP Er­ic Williams al­so had his share of is­sues, re­sign­ing as En­er­gy Min­is­ter in 2006 af­ter al­leged bribery charges on which he was freed due to un­re­li­able ev­i­dence and wrong­ful ar­rest. Mc­Don­ald was Row­ley's staunchest al­ly in 2010/15 op­po­si­tion days; her im­por­tance in his 2015 Cab­i­net just as strong due to a mi­nor­i­ty of ex­pe­ri­enced mem­bers plus she's been a mag­net for PNM grass­roots/tra­di­tion­al sup­port.

The crime is­sue—where some of her Sea Lots con­stituents were con­cerned—had al­ready threat­ened her po­lit­i­cal stand­ing and Gov­ern­ment's by ex­ten­sion. Con­ta­gion risk to Mc­Don­ald height­ened re­cent­ly when one con­stituent was killed by po­lice and an­oth­er re­peat­ed­ly de­tained. Her brief Pub­lic Util­i­ties ap­point­ment in 2017—cur­tailed be­cause of al­leged gang leader Cedric Burke's pres­ence at her swear­ing-in func­tion—taught Mc­Don­ald how some links could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact her ca­reer. She was al­lowed to re­main as deputy leader af­ter re­moval then. But it's left to be seen whether that'll con­tin­ue if the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion de­te­ri­o­rates.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is still over­seas. But the tim­ing of po­lice ac­tion—in the cur­rent Par­lia­men­tary re­cess—has spared Mc­Don­ald and Gov­ern­ment from fac­ing that fo­rum un­der the cur­rent cloud. Her Op­po­si­tion col­leagues—for sev­er­al of whom she's a favourite—have re­act­ed con­sid­er­ate­ly enough for some UNC fol­low­ers to even spec­u­late whether she's be­ing "sac­ri­ficed" on PNM's an­ti-cor­rup­tion al­tar.

The de­vel­op­ment has arisen ear­ly enough for PNM—head­ing to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls be­fore year-end—to do dam­age con­trol. In the event of a neg­a­tive out­come, Mc­Don­ald's years of is­sues make for a com­pli­cat­ed sit­u­a­tion to han­dle re­gard­ing her al­ready un­easy con­stituents, Gov­ern­ment's pro­file and Row­ley's im­age. What's next?