Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ini­tial ab­sence from Par­lia­ment’s ear­ly seg­ment yes­ter­day—and de­lay in re­ply­ing to ques­tions pend­ing from last week’s sit­ting - caused con­cern for the Op­po­si­tion.

“The Prime Min­is­ter must re­spect this Par­lia­ment and the peo­ple of T&T!” fumed Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar even­tu­al­ly ar­rived, Op­po­si­tion ques­tions were dropped and amid Cari­com guests, she spoke warm­ly of Cari­com, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mains spot­light­ed on oth­er is­sues. Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion Zones Bill trig­gered a per­fect storm of fac­tors which have placed the Prime Min­is­ter—and po­lice—fac­ing a cri­sis of con­fi­dence in the pub­lic’s eye.

The bill al­lowed the PM pow­er, as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil head, to de­clare zones for spe­cial op­er­a­tions by joint se­cu­ri­ty forces with wide pow­ers, mi­nus war­rants, and the abil­i­ty to in­sti­tute 24-hour cor­dons and 72-hour max­i­mum cur­few. The bill’s de­feat at Tues­day’s Sen­ate meet­ing, due to a lack of In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors’ sup­port, was a sharp re­buke to Gov­ern­ment (and se­cu­ri­ty forces) on sev­er­al fac­tors, based on trust and lead­er­ship.

Among them: Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s record of flip-flop­ping on var­i­ous is­sues. Her acidic pre-de­bate sal­vo to In­de­pen­dents. Bill pro­vi­sions stir­ring alarm of ICE-type pa­trols af­ter the US chaos, in­clud­ing in Min­neso­ta, where two Amer­i­cans were killed by ICE. The fa­tal TTPS shoot­ing of Joshua Sama­roo and maim­ing of his wife Ka­ia Sealy. Wide crit­i­cism—top to bot­tom—of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s un­for­tu­nate pre-in­ves­ti­ga­tion pos­ture on the shoot­ings.

Gov­ern­ment front­lin­er Phillip Alexan­der of­fer­ing the bill as a nec­es­sary “poi­son” to the pub­lic. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s ab­sence, de­lay­ing the de­bate, but his in­sis­tence on pass­ing the bill in­tact quick­ly to im­ple­ment in time for to­day’s State of Emer­gency end­ing. Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts’ boor­ish at­tack on In­de­pen­dents.

The In­de­pen­dents did their job: stand­ing in the gap re­gard­ing pub­lic con­cerns on Gov­ern­ment’s pre­sen­ta­tion.

The dis­grace for Gov­ern­ment (which, as Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der re­cent­ly said, was al­ready prepar­ing to zone ar­eas) was acute. Rather than “draw-down” plans as the US reached for, af­ter Min­neso­ta “heat” “melt­ed” ICE force, the depth of de­feat showed in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s al­le­ga­tion about two un­named In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors seek­ing “per­son­al favours” to sup­port the bill from an un­named Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor.

It’s ahead whether Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo calls in In­de­pen­dents for query. Some­thing which Is­rael Khan, SC, yes­ter­day told the T&T Guardian is ad­vis­able.

Suc­cess in cloud­ing In­de­pen­dents’ im­age, di­min­ish­ing their fu­ture work and warn­ing off po­ten­tial In­de­pen­dents ap­point­ed by Kan­ga­loo—with whom Gov­ern­ment al­so has is­sues—as is the ob­vi­ous tar­get, de­pends on the PM iden­ti­fy­ing the un­named in the al­leged sce­nario and pur­su­ing re­quired le­gal mech­a­nisms.

Mi­nus Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­swers and prop­er pro­ce­dures, she her­self re­mains un­der sus­pi­cion, as any­one.

The zones mat­ter—like Min­neso­ta’s sit­u­a­tion—has be­come an in­flex­ion point of Gov­ern­ment’s nine-month tenure.

In­de­pen­dents would be aware of the pres­sure they’ll face un­til their term ends. The PM and po­lice are sim­i­lar­ly un­der pres­sure where pub­lic trust is con­cerned. Alexan­der’s planned law to curb videos of po­lice shoot­ings—fur­ther provo­ca­tion for a pub­lic whose so­cial me­dia pen­chant holds records and are among their few un­taxed out­lets. So far.

The toll which the is­sues have tak­en on the Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment’s im­age was seen in Thurs­day’s prop­ping up of her stocks by OPM Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath’s voic­ing Gov­ern­ment sup­port for her claim on In­de­pen­dents. Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly came her own out­reach re­minder to the pub­lic—their busi­ness re­mained Gov­ern­ment’s top pri­or­i­ty with ded­i­ca­tion to re­spond­ing to con­cerns.

The jar­ring se­ries of events did not lend well to the PM’s im­age for yes­ter­day’s vis­it of in­com­ing Cari­com chair­man Ter­rence Drew and Cari­com guests. Es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s frac­ture of T&T/Cari­com ties af­ter her caus­tic state­ments on Cari­com. With Drew’s adop­tion of the high­er road of out­reach, and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ments yes­ter­day, whether she at­tends the Feb­ru­ary con­fer­ence is ahead.

De­ci­sions are need­ed. This coun­try leads Cari­com’s se­cu­ri­ty sub-com­mit­tee—and af­ter the PM’s 2025 ab­sence, her pres­ence is ex­pect­ed on this sig­nif­i­cant mat­ter, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty is­sues and Gov­ern­ment’s much vaunt­ed part­ner­ship with the US on this. T&T’s stand­ing will need re­in­forc­ing, as T&T as­sumes Cari­com chair­man­ship from Jan­u­ary 1 to June 30, 2028 and will have to host a Cari­com sum­mit.

Lo­cal­ly—next chap­ter ahead.