They’re al­ready in a “Pardy” but some politi­cians will par­tic­u­lar­ly be en­joy­ing the “Great Es­cape,” “Car­ry­ing It” for two days.

Af­ter Machel, Patrice and Bun­ji’s com­po­si­tions and, non-stop fete cli­max­es T&T’s “Great­est Bend Over,” as per Yung Bred­da, the re­al “par­ty” ac­tion ig­nites elec­tion high gear.

Those in the Car­ni­val mix: Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell in San Fer­nan­do’s Poudre J’Ou­vert and in a Port-of-Spain band on Tues­day. Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP Bar­ry Padarath in Lost Tribe. Col­league Rudy In­dars­ingh lim­ing in J’Ou­vert and watch­ing bands. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds will be walk­ing the pa­rade routes with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, mon­i­tor­ing the na­tion­al fete un­der a State of Emer­gency. How it’s per­formed will be known soon.

While Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at­tend­ed Tues­day’s Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Red fete, act­ing PM Stu­art Young is ex­pect­ed to be ob­serv­ing and sup­port­ing Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions it’s con­firmed—a “work­ing break” be­fore en­ter­ing the role of­fi­cial­ly when Row­ley re­signs on March 16.

Young will be­come T&T’s sec­ond youngest Prime Min­is­ter; Patrick Man­ning, born 1946, be­ing the first in 1991, age 45.

Young’s lat­est lead­er­ship test on Thurs­day—tem­per­ing US ac­tion on en­er­gy li­cences with the an­nounce­ment of a long-await­ed pre­ferred bid­der for T&T’s re­fin­ery—show­cased some of his guid­ing prin­ci­ples be­ing em­ployed on this coun­try’s be­half. Di­rect­ness about chances to dogged­ness in not giv­ing up and recog­ni­tion that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for T&T de­mands cer­tain such strengths.

Be­yond Row­ley’s his­toric re­de­f­i­n­i­tion of the mod­el for tran­si­tion­al lead­er­ship, it’s ahead how smooth­ly it will be im­ple­ment­ed con­sid­er­ing the as­sort­ed in­ter­pre­ta­tions of process­es from aca­d­e­mics and at­tor­neys.

The up­com­ing Ides of March pe­ri­od fur­ther height­ened con­cerns about the spot­light sec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion (76 a/b), in­clud­ing: whether the is­sue may go to court, if Row­ley can main­tain the post of PNM leader, whether the PNM, with a con­ven­tion ex­pect­ed in Sep­tem­ber, may have to en­ter elec­tion mi­nus a leader or has the de­sire to elect one. At PNM’s Jan­u­ary Gen­er­al Coun­cil, where the sup­port of all PNM MPs for Young was con­firmed, gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings re­vealed Young was the par­ty’s choice for leader.

How far that cov­ers the sit­u­a­tion, or if con­sti­tu­tion­al in­ter­pre­ta­tion may be test­ed, is ahead. Gov­ern­ment, with four se­nior coun­sels—AG Regi­nald Ar­mour, Faris Al-Rawi, Young and Kei­th Scot­land—would have gone over the sit­u­a­tion minute­ly, ob­tain­ing fur­ther le­gal ad­vice, prepar­ing for Op­po­si­tion chal­lenge to Row­ley’s res­ig­na­tion and the ap­point­ment process.

Some PN­Mites ex­pect tran­si­tion­al “bumps” in the par­ty and that the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Coun­cil ses­sion will be “hot.” It’s ahead whether one is held on March 7 —the on­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty for Row­ley to clar­i­fy PN­Mites’ con­cern and re­in­force home base sup­port be­fore han­dover, since he’ll be in To­ba­go on March 15 .

It’s un­like­ly his at­ten­dance at Cari­com’s re­cent con­fer­ence was Row­ley’s “last dance” with Cari­com, con­sid­er­ing his of­fer to as­sist ahead and glob­al chal­lenges. Cari­com’s farewell, how­ev­er, telegraphed that some­one else will rep­re­sent T&T at Cari­com’s Ju­ly con­fer­ence in Ja­maica.

Whether it’s Young as T&T’s eighth PM or ninth, or an­oth­er leader, re­mains ahead. Elec­tion date, dic­tat­ing pace and plac­ing, is ex­pect­ed to be far off enough to al­low Young to es­tab­lish an in­de­pen­dent pro­file, a ne­ces­si­ty for any suc­ces­sor.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was mum Wednes­day on if her par­ty would chal­lenge process­es. Oth­er UNC of­fi­cials con­firmed mon­i­tor­ing of ac­tion be­ing tak­en “in case a chal­lenge is re­quired.”

Lar­ry Lal­la SC’s res­ig­na­tion from the UNC—the lat­est neg­a­tive sig­nal to the mid­dle ground vot­ers the par­ty re­quires—was fol­lowed by Vic­tor Roberts’ res­ig­na­tion from par­ty posts. Both at­tend­ed “dis­si­dent” MP Rush­ton Paray’s March 2024 “pow­er play” de­but. De­par­ture tim­ings have sparked con­cern, in­clud­ing on UNC’s haem­or­rhag­ing.

At­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh’s ap­pear­ance at the UNC’s sub­se­quent brief­ing ap­peared as as­sur­ance on the par­ty’s tal­ent. Al­so: UNC on Tues­day screened ex-PNM La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro chair­man Phillip Watts for the seat. With the PNM for 14 years, Watts was chair­man un­der ex-MP Max­ie Cuffie, plus Cuffie’s cam­paign man­ag­er and cur­rent MP Cum­mings’.

On the eve of Row­ley’s res­ig­na­tion, the COP and HOPE/NTA/CRN coali­tion height­en pro­files with ral­lies—COP’s March 8, the coali­tion’s March 12. COP plans invit­ing ex-lead­ers Win­ston Dook­er­an and Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan. The COP is striv­ing for a UNC al­liance but the coali­tion is di­vid­ed on that.

Helon Fran­cis’ “To Whom It May Be” re­mains rel­e­vant post-Wednes­day. But T&T re­al­ly de­serves a “par­ty.” All-in­clu­sive best.