Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

gail.alexan­der@guardian.co.tt

Hap­py New Year! 2026 will hold “in­ter­est­ing times” and Guardian Me­dia reached out to var­i­ous ex­perts and stake­hold­ers to share their views on what’s ahead for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath

As we en­ter 2026, what con­cerns me most is not that T&T faces chal­lenges—every coun­try does—but the fact that fail­ure is be­ing nor­malised and de­fend­ed. Weak growth is blamed on glob­al con­di­tions; ris­ing crime blamed on so­ci­ety; fis­cal stress, on pre­de­ces­sors. Every coun­try’s faced glob­al dis­rup­tion over the last decade. Some re­struc­tured, re­formed, and re­stored con­fi­dence. Oth­ers ra­tio­nalised de­cline. T&T is in­creas­ing­ly be­ing grouped with the lat­ter.

Cap­i­tal is mo­bile, un­for­giv­ing and ruth­less. It flows to coun­tries that demon­strate dis­ci­pline, clar­i­ty, and ac­count­abil­i­ty. It avoids those that ra­tio­nalise fail­ure. In in­ter­na­tion­al set­tings, that’s fa­tal. In­vestors don’t ac­cept ex­pla­na­tions, they as­sess risk. Rat­ing agen­cies don’t care about po­lit­i­cal nar­ra­tives, they watch dis­ci­pline, re­form, and ex­e­cu­tion. Crime is the clear­est in­dict­ment of gov­er­nance.

Years of strate­gies, task forces, and emer­gency mea­sures haven’t de­liv­ered sus­tained im­prove­ment. Peo­ple con­tin­ue be­ing ‘im­pris­oned’ in homes, par­ents fear for chil­dren, work­ers risk lives just to earn wages. Any respite’s seen as tem­po­rary. Busi­ness­es en­dure high se­cu­ri­ty costs. Fam­i­lies are plan­ning ex­its, pro­fes­sion­als leav­ing qui­et­ly.

That’s not per­cep­tion—it is con­se­quence. The same lack of se­ri­ous­ness shows up in for­eign pol­i­cy. Pub­licly dis­parag­ing Cari­com, mis­han­dling re­la­tions with Venezuela, and pur­su­ing geopo­lit­i­cal align­ment with­out clar­i­ty isn’t strength. It is reck­less­ness. Geopo­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ing may sound tough, and pop­u­lar with base sup­port but tough­ness with­out strat­e­gy hurts or­di­nary peo­ple. Chang­ing nar­ra­tives cre­ate un­cer­tain­ty. Trade suf­fers. Con­fi­dence falls. Jobs are put at risk. Small states sur­vive through dis­ci­pline and bal­ance, not chest-beat­ing and im­pro­vi­sa­tion. Words mat­ter, and care­less ones are ex­pen­sive.

“What makes this sit­u­a­tion frus­trat­ing is T&T still has op­tions - en­er­gy ex­per­tise, ca­pa­ble in­sti­tu­tions, tal­ent­ed peo­ple. Lead­er­ship isn’t about ex­plain­ing de­cline or shift­ing blame. It’s about find­ing so­lu­tions that im­pact every­day liv­ing. Cit­i­zens aren’t in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing what they had to en­dure in the last decade of failed gov­ern­ment. They want to hear that those they’ve em­ployed to im­prove the qual­i­ty of their lives are up to the task and will not gam­ble with their fu­tures. A dis­en­chant­ed pop­u­la­tion vot­ed this gov­ern­ment in­to of­fice on a wave of pop­u­lar sup­port and sig­nif­i­cant good­will still ex­ists.

But now cit­i­zens’ mes­sage is sim­ple: stop de­fend­ing fail­ure and start own­ing it. T&T can­not sur­vive on ex­cus­es. And the peo­ple pay­ing the price are run­ning out of pa­tience.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira

2026 (The Year of the Horse) is a year in which flex­i­bil­i­ty, pa­tience and sound judge­ment will mat­ter. The coun­try is fac­ing many chal­lenges, dwin­dling for­eign re­serves, high de­pen­dence on a nar­row range of ex­ports; crime and pub­lic safe­ty; en­vi­ron­men­tal, in­sti­tu­tion­al. Re­spond­ing ef­fec­tive­ly will re­quire adapt­abil­i­ty rather than rigid­i­ty.

My fo­cus will re­main on con­tribut­ing where I can add the most val­ue, main­tain­ing my le­gal prac­tice, pro­mot­ing a cul­ture of in­no­va­tion us­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (I have some ideas on how we can cul­ti­vate an ecosys­tem for our cre­atives and en­tre­pre­neurs), ad­vanc­ing my work in al­ter­na­tive dis­pute res­o­lu­tion and sup­port­ing prac­ti­cal en­vi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate-re­lat­ed ac­tion...In the Sen­ate, my ap­proach will con­tin­ue be­ing guid­ed by care­ful scruti­ny of leg­is­la­tion, ask­ing the dif­fi­cult ques­tions and sup­port­ing re­forms that are in­no­v­a­tive but re­spon­si­ble...as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty isn’t to chase head­lines or par­ti­san ad­van­tage, but to help strength­en in­sti­tu­tions, pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions and con­tribute so­lu­tions that are durable law­ful and just.

Michael An­nisette (SWW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al/NATUC gen­er­al sec­re­tary/Caribbean Con­gress of Labour gen­er­al sec­re­tary)

Fair wages. Se­cure jobs. Strong com­mu­ni­ties. A fu­ture that works for all. En­ter­ing 2026, labour is clear: the econ­o­my must put peo­ple first. Growth that leaves work­ers be­hind isn’t re­cov­ery. NATUC re­it­er­ates that wage-led growth is es­sen­tial...Job-led growth must mean de­cent, se­cure work, not short-term or pre­car­i­ous em­ploy­ment. This con­cept must be the dri­ver be­hind our new 2026 eco­nom­ic mod­el.

Crime and eco­nom­ics are in­sep­a­ra­ble. When young peo­ple are de­nied op­por­tu­ni­ty, so­ci­ety pays the price. Re­al crime pre­ven­tion be­gins with jobs, ed­u­ca­tion, skills train­ing, and com­mu­ni­ty in­vest­ment. NATUC stands with sin­gle par­ents, es­pe­cial­ly work­ing moth­ers, car­ry­ing a heavy eco­nom­ic and so­cial bur­den.

Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty can on­ly grow when there’s gen­uine part­ner­ship, train­ing and tech­nol­o­gy that speaks to a mod­ern world of work and re­spect for work­ers—and must be matched by fair re­wards. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty means pro­tect­ing jobs to­day while prepar­ing for to­mor­row through di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, re­spon­si­ble for­eign ex­change man­age­ment, and sup­port for lo­cal in­dus­try and na­tion­al re­silience. NATUC’s vi­sion for 2026 - growth must be shared, dig­ni­ty at work must be pro­tect­ed, and the fu­ture built to­geth­er—work­er, com­mu­ni­ty, na­tion.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day

I wish every­one a hap­py, safe and hope­ful New Year. My fo­cus in 2026 is peo­ple and progress.

I’m proud of what we achieved in the last gen­er­al elec­tion. With very lim­it­ed re­sources, we earned the third-high­est num­ber of votes. That told us some­thing im­por­tant, peo­ple are ready for a dif­fer­ent kind of lead­er­ship, one that lis­tens, shows up and puts coun­try first.

Go­ing for­ward, we’re fo­cused on con­tin­u­ing to build our par­ty steadi­ly and hon­est­ly, not just for elec­tions, but for the long term. We’ll con­tin­ue our hu­man­i­tar­i­an work in com­mu­ni­ties across T&T. I’d said lead­er­ship means stand­ing up for those who are too of­ten ig­nored. We’ ll con­tin­ue speak­ing out when poli­cies hurt cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly the poor and the pow­er­less. T&T de­serves lead­er­ship that is prac­ti­cal, com­pas­sion­ate and fo­cused on the fu­ture. That’s the work we are com­mit­ted to.

UNC front­lin­er Jack Warn­er

In the first eight months of the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion, we’ve wit­nessed mea­sur­able im­prove­ments across mul­ti­ple sec­tors - signs that pur­pose­ful lead­er­ship and peo­ple-cen­tred gov­er­nance mat­ters. I’m op­ti­mistic about the fu­ture, com­mit­ted to con­tribut­ing to a coun­try that works for and ben­e­fits all.

Over 2026, my fo­cus will be pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal sup­port for mea­sures mean­ing­ful­ly im­prov­ing peo­ple’s qual­i­ty of life. Do­ing some­thing, how­ev­er small, is bet­ter than do­ing noth­ing at all. In com­mu­ni­ties like mine, too many youths are grow­ing up sur­round­ed by noise but lack­ing guid­ance, op­por­tu­ni­ties, and hon­est con­ver­sa­tions. My con­tri­bu­tion will be root­ed in what I can of­fer: time, knowl­edge, con­sis­ten­cy. Whether help­ing a youth un­der­stand the val­ue of ed­u­ca­tion be­yond ex­ams...or sim­ply lis­ten­ing with­out judge­ment, small in­ter­ven­tions mat­ter more than we of­ten re­alise.

I be­lieve con­sis­tent and hon­est en­gage­ment can change tra­jec­to­ries...Our young peo­ple don’t need sav­iours. They need adults will­ing to show up, stay en­gaged, and in­vest in their po­ten­tial. That’s the con­tri­bu­tion I choose to make.

Ex-UNC Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray

In 2026, I want the na­tion­al fo­cus to shift to what tru­ly mat­ters for dai­ly life in T&T via the fol­low­ing:

Clear, sus­tained fo­cus on se­ri­ous crime re­duc­tion.

De­ci­sions an­chored on facts with ful­ly func­tion­ing Na­tion­al Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice guid­ing pol­i­cy.

The econ­o­my work­ing for peo­ple who pro­duce and pro­vide. Re­li­able ac­cess to for­eign ex­change, fair treat­ment for small busi­ness­es, farm­ers, man­u­fac­tur­ers, ex­porters, and trans­paren­cy in eco­nom­ic man­age­ment.

Wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty and food re­silience treat­ed as na­tion­al plan­ning is­sues, not sea­son­al crises.

Pub­lic ser­vices that re­spect peo­ple’s time. Func­tion­ing dig­i­tal sys­tems. En­forced ser­vice stan­dards.

Hon­est lead­er­ship, re­al law en­force­ment re­form. Firm, fair, ac­count­able polic­ing. Laws ap­plied con­sis­tent­ly.

Youth de­vel­op­ment tied to re­al jobs and skills lead­ing some­where.

Lons­dale Williams, Con­gress of the Peo­ple chair­man (UNC coali­tion part­ner)

If 2025 has taught us any­thing, it is that 2026 will not be a year for hes­i­ta­tion or half mea­sures. It will be a de­ci­sive year that de­mands clar­i­ty, courage and lead­er­ship. I’ve is­sued a clear man­date to the COP’s Na­tion­al Coun­cil to im­me­di­ate­ly pre­pare for in­ter­nal elec­tions. Once this process is com­plet­ed, the par­ty will move for­ward de­ci­sive­ly, unit­ed in pur­pose and di­rec­tion.

We’ll in­crease our pub­lic pres­ence and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, start­ing with re­open­ing our Tu­na­puna of­fice. The COP will no longer op­er­ate in shad­ows or al­low am­bi­gu­i­ty to de­fine its role. There must be ab­solute clar­i­ty re­gard­ing our sta­tus with­in the so-called Coali­tion of In­ter­ests. That clar­i­ty will be com­mu­ni­cat­ed open­ly and un­equiv­o­cal­ly to our mem­bers and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. We will not per­mit a re­peat of the con­fu­sion, mis­trust and po­lit­i­cal dam­age as­so­ci­at­ed with the much-ma­ligned Fyz­abad Ac­cord.

The Gov­ern­ment of the day faces se­ri­ous and un­avoid­able chal­lenges in rev­enue gen­er­a­tion and job cre­ation. The COP is pre­pared to meet this mo­ment. With­in our ranks are ex­pe­ri­enced, ca­pa­ble and prin­ci­pled in­di­vid­u­als ready to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and to help chart a bet­ter course for T&T.

For­mer NTA leader, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Griffth

My fo­cus will al­ways be on be­ing there for my fam­i­ly and ad­her­ing to that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. I’ve ac­quired nu­mer­ous ap­point­ments in my life, but the most ful­fill­ing, ho­n­ourable and sat­is­fy­ing posts have been that of a hus­band, a fa­ther and a grand­fa­ther, which I cher­ish dear­ly and in­tend to be even bet­ter in those three posts next year. Every­thing else is just to put on a wall. If I get ex­tra time, it will be to find a way to unite our coun­try and make it a safer, bet­ter place.