MP Colm Im­bert has been re­s­e­lect­ed to run in GE2025 for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in Diego Mar­tin North East. He has been that con­stituen­cy’s MP since 1992. He said it would be his “last term” but al­so pledged that it would be his “best term.” That must mean he will not be bur­dened with any min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio (if the PNM is re­turned). That will be ex­cel­lent news for his con­stituen­cy and the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

One as­sumes that the PNM is al­low­ing him a dig­ni­fied de­par­ture af­ter he re­fused to take a hint from the out­go­ing Prime Min­is­ter. He used to be PM Row­ley’s go-to act­ing prime min­is­ter but he has long lost that es­ti­ma­tion to the anoint­ed prime min­is­ter in wait­ing, Stu­art Young.

The in­com­ing PM would be wise to in­stall a new Min­is­ter of Fi­nance as well. The in­cum­bent Gov­ern­ment would not seek to pass an­oth­er bud­get be­fore GE2025. It will be a good idea for the PNM to el­e­vate Bri­an Man­ning to the top spot in the Fi­nance Min­istry. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Im­bert is as­so­ci­at­ed with: “they haven’t ri­ot­ed yet,” prop­er­ty tax, FOREX scarci­ty, 4% or less wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, and SME suf­fer­ing amongst many oth­er un­pop­u­lar mea­sures. The pop­u­la­tion will not miss him as a min­is­ter. He needs to de­vote all of his time to his ex­pect­ed MP du­ties. His char­ac­ter­is­tic ar­ro­gance may be more use­ful there. This is one weak­ness the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can dri­ve home on the GE2025 hus­tings. Could this one holdover jeop­ar­dise Young’s in­com­ing “Team PNM” over­haul?

The PNM is just a Tabaquite can­di­date away from be­ing ready to call GE2025 but Im­bert’s in­clu­sion and Dr Amery Browne’s ex­clu­sion are caus­ing some head-scratch­ing na­tion­al­ly. PM Row­ley’s im­pend­ing re­tire­ment, along with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter falling on his sword, give the sem­blance of change. Can a PM Young guar­an­tee the na­tion that we will be spared Im­bert’s aus­ter­i­ty?

If he can­not, who will the UNC, Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF), Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), or HOPE pro­pose? This is an open­ing that these par­ties, with or with­out a coali­tion, can ex­ploit. Who will of­fer the most com­pe­tent can­di­dates for min­is­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and fi­nance? Who will re­duce crime? What are the re­al­is­tic plans for in­creas­ing our GDP? Who is go­ing to sig­nif­i­cant­ly lift the qual­i­ty of Trin­bag­on­ian life?

The UNC lead­er­ship made much of trade union in­put in their “coali­tion” but the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union has dis­tanced it­self from the UNC and its for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Clyde El­der, who is the UNC can­di­date for La Brea in GE 2025. What ex­act­ly is Mr El­der bring­ing to the ta­ble if not the mem­ber­ship of his for­mer union? Would the UNC lead­er­ship have se­lect­ed him if they knew he was com­ing alone? Will he be able to sur­mount the 3,607 vote mar­gin of vic­to­ry the PNM reg­is­tered over the UNC in La Brea in 2020?

CWU did not meet with JTUM about sup­port­ing the UNC. If Mr El­der can­not add his for­mer union sup­port base to the tune of over 3,607 votes, what is the point? Will OW­TU vice pres­i­dent Ernesto Ke­sar (now GE2025 UNC can­di­date for Point Fortin) nar­row the 3,515-vote ad­van­tage that the PNM has from 2020? The on­ly of­fi­cial po­lit­i­cal ve­hi­cle of the unions in Trin­ba­go is the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) and its leader, David Ab­du­lah, is on­ly “mon­i­tor­ing” re­mote­ly. If these two “union” can­di­dates lose in GE2025, what will be their fu­ture in the UNC and in their union ca­reers?

MP Rush­ton Paray has won Ma­yaro com­fort­ably over the past two gen­er­al elec­tions, which could de­ceive some in­to think­ing that it is a UNC safe seat. How­ev­er, as­pi­rants to re­place Rush­ton in Ma­yaro are: Nicholas Mor­ris, for­mer UNC youth arm chair­man and cur­rent re­search of­fi­cer for MP David Lee, and Ray­mond Co­zi­er, Ma­yaro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man. If MP Paray is re­ject­ed, I ex­pect the UNC to strug­gle, es­pe­cial­ly if he de­cides to run as an in­de­pen­dent or if he joins up with one of the new­er par­ties. He won that mar­gin­al seat by 3,364 votes in 2020. Shouldn’t he con­test if he wants to? It is his de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right, sim­i­lar to his run for a Na­tex po­si­tion in the last UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions. He may be re­ject­ed be­cause of this very fact though!

MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne al­so faces chal­lenges from sen­a­tor Sean Sobers, who lost San Fer­nan­do West in 2020 and Ke­van Gibbs, for­mer TPRC al­der­man. It is ru­moured that Sobers will re­place Haynes-Al­leyne. When asked if she would con­sid­er run­ning with an­oth­er par­ty, she quot­ed Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ‘Any­thing is pos­si­ble’. Both Rush­ton and Ani­ta are two of the UNC’s finest MPs and are very pop­u­lar na­tion­al­ly. Will their con­stituents be pun­ished in a gen­er­al elec­tion be­cause their MPs ran for po­si­tions in an in­ter­nal UNC elec­tion?

Sup­pos­ed­ly, the UNC lead­er­ship will have com­plet­ed GE2025 screen­ing by to­day but many can­di­dates will not be an­nounced out of fear of a ma­jor fall­out. Can­di­dates for UNC strong­holds will not be an­nounced un­til prime min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Young calls the elec­tion. These con­sid­er­a­tions re­mind us that in 2025, can­di­date se­lec­tion mat­ters. The days of vot­ing for a “cra­paud in a (bal­isi­er) tie” are com­ing to a close. Will we see last-minute changes of can­di­dates be­fore nom­i­na­tion day as we did in 2020? If so, will they be based on ridicu­lous rea­sons, as ob­tained in that same year al­so?