And af­ter Mon­day’s 22-19 dust­up: the PNM plans de­liv­er­ing its 2021 Bud­get in Sep­tem­ber rather than Oc­to­ber - but that’s con­tin­gent on whether a new Gov­ern­ment is ap­point­ed by Tues­day or Mon­day.

Word on pro­ject­ed dates came from PNM of­fi­cials yes­ter­day as bal­lot box re­counts re­quest­ed by the UNC con­tin­ue this week­end.

The plateau comes af­ter Mon­day’s 22-19 elec­tion re­sults. A term-bat­tered PNM mor­phed to steel-fo­cused ma­chine work­ing a plan based on the con­fines of the COVID-19 land­scape led by a roar­ing leader. Fight­ing hard and in the end best­ing. Close­ly. Swip­ing pop­u­lar vote from UNC. But every­body’s votes down.

Moru­ga out. PNM’s La Brea/Le Hunte can­di­da­cy fight end­ing with vic­to­ry - but 2,000 less than Nicole Ol­livierre’s 11,588 of 2015. But UNC’s 2015 and 2020 re­sults re­mained the same.

PDP’s Wat­son Duke’s 5,866 To­ba­go East votes show­ing grow­ing an­ti-PN­Mism, though PNM Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy’s 7,127 to­tal was down by 800 from her 2015 tal­ly.

How much COVID re­duced vote turnout to 58.04 per cent - from the 2015 lev­el of 67.97 per cent- re­mains to un­fold. But clear dis­en­chant­ment shows both par­ties are be­ing eyed sharply.

On vic­to­ry night, PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, work­ing with term’s as­sess­ment, cam­paign­ing in­for­ma­tion - and the huge man­age­ment re­spon­si­bil­i­ty PNM faces ahead- has sought re­in­force­ment on PNM’s fu­ture.

Post-Williams era, PNM hasn’t made it through two terms. Row­ley’s sig­nal that he won’t be part of the frame­work be­yond 2025 may ease some bur­den the par­ty car­ried due to cer­tain un­pop­u­lar­i­ty of his/par­ty term pro­file. Build­ing on vot­ers’ favourable pro­nounce­ment, his state­ments will now trig­ger in­ter­est on PNM’s fu­ture shape.

Safe­guard­ing PNM some­what, that an­nounce­ment and PNM’s vic­to­ry land­ed dou­ble cuffs to the UNC, where leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s dug in. And from this ap­par­ent­ly, is be­ing of­fered to 2025 vot­ers.

Row­ley’s move catered to grow­ing de­mand for fresh­ness on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape. PNM would have recog­nised this elec­tion was the last dance for both par­ties’ tra­di­tion­al lead­er­ship typ­ings. In T&T’s state, a new nor­mal is just that. If some didn’t vote it’s be­cause they found no cred­i­ble of­fer­ing be­yond what as­sort­ed fol­low­ers and oth­er sec­tors - in­clud­ing cer­tain lev­el of mer­ce­nar­ies - found at­trac­tive.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stocks with­in par­ty may be fine with UNC MPs. But her pub­lic im­age won’t im­prove, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing PNM’s chal­lenges and how they may con­se­quent­ly play the term (as Row­ley al­ready sig­nalled). Se­lec­tion of her na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive as can­di­dates has paid off for her rather than coun­try. And fac­tor­ing in loss/vic­to­ry fall­out would have been con­sid­ered in choic­es - in­clud­ing where threats to a de­feat­ed lead­er­ship were con­cerned.

Present line­up’s cre­den­tials present ab­solute­ly no suc­ces­sion plan­ning. UNC’s Su­ruj Ram­bachan, who, pre-poll, laud­ed Roodal Mooni­lal for lead­er­ship, backpedalled post-poll once the lead­er­ship is­sue be­came re­al­i­ty.

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar tried to ral­ly troops Tues­day say­ing it was UNC which “han­dled” PNM dur­ing the term, heart of the team that did this was evict­ed in favour of new­bies. Whose votes were low­er than pre­vi­ous MPs, rais­ing ques­tions on the size of UNC’s much-tout­ed non-tra­di­tion­al sup­port (That query was an­swered by those de­mand­ing pay­ment in Tu­na­puna and oth­er seats re­cent­ly).

In a patent­ly dif­fer­ent elec­tion, UNC played same old - bank­ing on PNM un­pop­u­lar­i­ty, ques­tion­able promis­es, race, give­aways and can­di­dates whose pro­file couldn’t out­shine neg­a­tives. UNC will be judged for play­ing to pop­ulist nerves in a coun­try fac­ing dire chal­lenge. Its present mired state may at­tract those hop­ing to re­shape. Or not.

But as Row­ley’s “fu­ture lead­er­ship” hint sig­nals a new PNM’s need­ed, so too does UNC’s lat­est de­feat dic­tate.

PNM has learned it will have to keep con­stant touch with “ground.” Its up­com­ing Bud­get must bal­ance elec­tion promis­es and hard re­cov­ery plans. More im­me­di­ate­ly, spi­ralling COVID cas­es re­quire up­grad­ed mea­sures - whether cur­tail­ment, in­clud­ing pub­lic trans­port loads - plus stu­dents’ con­tin­gen­cies.

The Op­po­si­tion’s sig­nal that its 19-seat sta­tus will fu­el fight is enough for PNM to un­der­stand where pro­ject­ed spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty laws and sim­i­lar oth­er ar­gu­ments will stand dur­ing the term. And the up­com­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

For the rest of T&T amid this lat­est bat­tle­ground Cold fo­cus. De­ter­mined for­ward.