Di­vali’s light en­velop­ing T&T has been sought by both Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), with the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s cel­e­bra­tions last Sun­day, and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) to­day.

If PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters host­ed last week’s heat­ed Gen­er­al Coun­cil (GC) meet­ing, to­day it’s fea­tur­ing Di­vali warmth. But not ear­ly enough to defuse the Op­po­si­tion’s gloat­ing in the Sen­ate’s 2025 Bud­get de­bate about in­ter­nal PNM is­sues com­pound­ing ex­ter­nal na­tion­al chal­lenges.

“Bac­cha­nal in PNM! A di­vid­ed house can­not stand!” ex­ult­ed UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark on Mon­day.

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan re­tort­ed, cit­ing UNC’s five es­tranged MPs of­fer­ing to sup­port Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion, “… Which house re­al­ly di­vid­ed?”

PNM’s cel­e­bra­tion may re­veal the depth of re­cu­per­a­tion since the coun­cil meet­ing, where PNM labour of­fi­cer Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings re­port­ed­ly braced Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on the can­cel­la­tion of the par­ty’s con­ven­tion and in­ter­nal elec­tion, and per­ceived “mixed mes­sages” on his lead­er­ship ahead.

Bap­tiste-Primus didn’t re­ply to T&T Guardian queries on if she’d at­tend to­day’s event.

It’s ahead if the event re­tools the PNM’s pro­file head­ing in­to nom­i­na­tion for con­stituen­cies held by nine min­is­ters, three min­is­ters of state and three non-port­fo­lio MPs

Last to be sought ahead, pos­si­bly next year: Diego Mar­tin West (held by Row­ley), DM North East (Colm Im­bert), DM Cen­tral (Symon de No­bre­ga), PoS North (Stu­art Young), PoS South (Kei­th Scot­land), To­ba­go East (Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy), To­ba­go West (Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis).

The ma­jor­i­ty of the 15 in­cum­bents will seek nom­i­na­tion it has been con­firmed. Arou­ca/Mal­oney ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials are “en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly await­ing” con­fir­ma­tion from MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is.

Ari­ma’s Pen­ny Beck­les will “def­i­nite­ly of­fer her­self.” Lopinot/Bon Air West’s Mar­vin Gon­za­les has full par­ty group sup­port, says con­stituen­cy chair­man Kyle Williams. San Fer­nan­do West’s Faris Al-Rawi’s fil­ing nom­i­na­tion, wish­ing to com­plete work he and the PNM did and new projects com­ing.

La Brea MP Stephen McLashie’s seek­ing nom­i­na­tion. Ex-min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte, the tar­get of lead­er­ship re­marks at the GC, said—af­ter con­firm­ing be­ing ap­proached on La Brea, “I’m still ex­plor­ing my op­tions.”

Sources dis­pelled UNC claims that Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell’s “seek­ing” SF East.

Laven­tille East’s solid­ly be­hind MP Adri­an Leonce, it’s con­firmed. Laven­tille West dis­trib­uted nom­i­na­tion forms on Thurs­day. MP Fitzger­ald Hinds con­firmed in­ter­est to the unit re­cent­ly but oth­ers are al­so ex­pect­ed by their No­vem­ber 8 dead­line. St Joseph’s Ter­rence Deyals­ingh didn’t re­ply to queries on nom­i­na­tion.

PN­Mites said screen­ing’s ex­pect­ed by No­vem­ber 30. Shad­ow­ing the ex­er­cise will be the con­cerns from ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers Bap­tiste-Primus and Cum­mings and the hand­ful who ab­stained from vot­ing - in­clud­ing at least one oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber, mem­bers claimed.

The 15 con­stituen­cies for nom­i­na­tion are rep­re­sent­ed by sit­ting MPs—car­ry­ing their own is­sues if in­cum­bents are re­ject­ed, some­thing which could re­flect on their per­for­mance hold­ing of­fice. There­fore, whether screen­ing sig­nals elec­tion may be slight­ly ear­li­er than Au­gust 2025 re­mains ahead.

Sinanan on Mon­day alert­ed, “T&T—the time will come very soon when the de­ci­sion we make will say a lot for what we per­ceive as stan­dards.”

Whether ear­ly screen­ing de­ter­mines ear­ly date, it’s ahead—whether de­feat or vic­to­ry, PNM’s con­ven­tion/elec­tion fol­lows elec­tion.

Row­ley, seek­ing trust from GC PN­Mites—who’ve seen di­vi­sion out­comes in 2010 and 2021—test­ed them. His con­tin­ued ap­point­ment of En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to act as PM—de­spite Young’s risque re­marks to the UNC dur­ing Bud­get de­bate —was telling. Change would have been per­ceived as ac­knowl­edg­ing his first ap­point­ments were wrong and shown Row­ley buck­ling to pres­sure. In 2020, Row­ley said he’d rather not an­swer then if he’d iden­ti­fied his suc­ces­sor, but stat­ed PNM isn’t a monar­chy where a leader picks its re­place­ment.

What­ev­er in­stru­ment Young is, feed­back over his ap­point­ment in­formed Row­ley on PNM views, who stands where and elec­tion plan­ning need­ed.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Di­vali Na­gar ad­dress tonight won’t an­nounce a UNC screen­ing date. UNC’s state—be­yond MP Roodal Mooni­lal’s EM­B­DC is­sues—will be re­vealed dur­ing screen­ing, ex­pect­ed af­ter No­vem­ber, for ear­ly 2025 elec­tion.

Of­fi­cials said fo­cus will first be on mar­gin­als—To­co, SF West, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Tu­na­puna and St Joseph, where ground­work’s churn­ing, then in­cum­bents’ ar­eas. No ear­ly an­swer for Jack Warn­er’s pitch for a seat. To­ba­go’s out of fo­cus. Cur­rent­ly.

The five es­tranged MPs were most­ly ab­sent from Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Di­vali event, in­clud­ing Rai Rag­bir, now on a US check-up fol­low­ing a 2023 heart at­tack.