Notwith­stand­ing as­sur­ances giv­en to Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young by US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio that the US will not do any­thing to harm Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture, the de­ter­mi­na­tion by US Pres­i­dent, Don­ald Trump to in­sti­tute a 25 per cent tar­iff against Chi­nese trade com­ing in­to the re­gion can add to T&T’s dif­fi­cul­ties in the pro­cess­ing of Venezuela’s nat­ur­al gas.  

The lat­ter pos­si­ble evolv­ing sce­nario is not one which T&T can eas­i­ly emerge from un­scathed. To align it­self with the US against Venezuela leaves T&T with­out that coun­try’s raw ma­te­ri­als to process; to hold fast to its agree­ments with Venezuela means a loss of US sup­port and a 25 per cent tar­iff against any prod­ucts to be ex­port­ed in­to the Unit­ed States from the Drag­on agree­ment.  

All of this adds to the heat­ed po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment even be­fore elec­tion cam­paign 2025 is ful­ly in­to a pell-mell race to April 28th. With on­ly the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) hav­ing de­clared all its can­di­dates, and the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress still con­tem­plat­ing and or wait­ing on the best mo­ment to make known fi­nal de­ci­sions, con­flict, doubt and con­fu­sion are oc­cu­py­ing the na­tion­al space.

Amongst the small par­ties in Trinidad, there is dis­in­te­gra­tion and frag­ile al­liances. 

Not so in To­ba­go. THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is ful­ly cog­nizant of the de­ter­min­ing role he and his To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty can po­ten­tial­ly play in the elec­tion if it were to win the two par­lia­men­tary seats on the is­land and if the elec­toral scores in Trinidad are very close, which he ex­pects will place him in a po­si­tion to de­cide which par­ty will be­come the next gov­ern­ment. On this pos­si­bil­i­ty, Au­gus­tine has made known his in­ten­tion that to the “high­est bid­der,” much like in an auc­tion sale, is where his ham­mer will fall.

His for­mer col­league, Wat­son Duke, has in­di­cat­ed he will on­ly set­tle in ex­change for his sup­port, what he con­sid­ers the four most im­por­tant min­is­te­r­i­al po­si­tions in the cab­i­net.

Thank­ful­ly, with the odd num­ber of seats in the na­tion­al Par­lia­ment, one par­ty will have a ma­jor­i­ty in Trinidad; whether it will be a work­ing ma­jor­i­ty is a dif­fer­ent is­sue. How­ev­er, giv­en the na­ture of pol­i­tics, the ca­pac­i­ty politi­cians have for “by any means pos­si­ble” horse-trad­ing re­mains a pos­si­bil­i­ty to set­tle prob­lems which may arise.

The hope on this oc­ca­sion is for the na­tion­al elec­torate to make a clear de­ci­sion by vot­ing a par­ty in­to of­fice with some­thing of a work­able ma­jor­i­ty for it to form the gov­ern­ment and be able to make crit­i­cal de­ci­sions, with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the Op­po­si­tion mak­ing life dif­fi­cult. At least with one par­ty in of­fice, that can elim­i­nate the need for in­tra-par­ty al­liances, which, as his­to­ry has shown, are like “jumbie um­brel­las” that col­lapse in­to the soil the morn­ing af­ter. 

Nonethe­less, if the elec­torate can­not make a clear de­ci­sion, or choos­es to show a state of un­cer­tain­ty be­tween and amongst the par­ties con­test­ing for gov­er­nor­ship, or if vot­ers de­cide to tell the par­ties they have to co­op­er­ate in the na­tion­al in­ter­est, then it will be over to the lead­ers and their par­ties to de­cide on how gov­ern­ment will be­come ful­ly func­tion­al.

With the above-list­ed geo-po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic pos­si­bil­i­ties threat­en­ing, post-elec­tion con­fu­sion will be the last thing those seek­ing to gov­ern T&T would want to face go­ing for­ward.