Af­ter the 2026 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) does not have a sin­gle seat in the THA for the first time since 1980. This con­firms the PNM’s ex­ile from lead­er­ship in To­ba­go, af­ter they lost both of To­ba­go’s par­lia­men­tary con­stituen­cies in GE2025. It is clear that To­ba­go peo­ple want to be gov­erned by a To­ba­go par­ty.

I ex­pect­ed a TPP win but this “Blue­wash” is quite in­struc­tive. Con­grat­u­la­tions again to Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and the new As­sem­bly mem­bers! It is ev­i­dent that To­ba­go peo­ple were quite sat­is­fied with the TPP’s pre­vi­ous term and their “Blue­print for To­ba­go 2025-2045.” Per­haps it was al­so a re­jec­tion of what­ev­er the PNM had to of­fer. An­cil Den­nis, leader of the PNM’s To­ba­go Coun­cil, in­di­cat­ed his in­ten­tion to step down af­ter the rout. PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les will use this op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­stall in­di­vid­u­als who would be more sup­port­ive of her lead­er­ship than ves­tiges from the Row­ley-era. One thing is cer­tain, they can­not do worse than ze­ro.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress cen­tral gov­ern­ment was ec­sta­t­ic: A PNM loss any­where is a win for them. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tend­ed the in­au­gu­ra­tion cer­e­mo­ny of the new THA. This will spur a UNC be­lief that they will not have to wor­ry about the PNM gain­ing any ad­van­tage over them in GE2030 by win­ning ei­ther of the two To­ba­go seats. The TPP is a proven de­fence against that fear.

Will To­ba­go even be a fac­tor in GE2030 though? When the TPP de­liv­ers its ful­ly func­tion­al “To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment,” there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that a gen­er­al elec­tion will be won or lost with­in Trinidad’s 39 seats. This re­stric­tion on the PNM’s old play­book would not on­ly ex­cite the UNC but al­so en­cour­age oth­er par­ties to fo­cus on the main­land. The To­ba­go blue zone could al­so be in­ter­pret­ed as ev­i­dence that a par­ty oth­er than the two ma­jors can in­deed make an im­pact.

The last time an­oth­er par­ty made a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact in our gen­er­al elec­tions was the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, which won six seats as part of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship in 2010. Will such a par­ty seek to cap­i­talise on the PNM’s re­treat? Or per­haps creep­ing dis­en­chant­ment with the UNC Gov­ern­ment?

Af­ter Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers re­ceived their pay­ment to­wards their promised 10% salary in­creas­es at the end of 2026, the Gov­ern­ment seems to be on a fundrais­ing dri­ve. Mor­tal fear of the in­creased Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act penal­ties have caused mul­ti­ple long lines of traf­fic out­side li­cens­ing of­fices, in­spec­tion sta­tions and garages. The Gov­ern­ment passed 3 and 7-day grace pe­ri­ods for cer­tain of­fences to soft­en the blow.

The move to in­tro­duce Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) gam­bling on Sun­days has been re­ceived as an in­fringe­ment on a day that many have set aside for their re­li­gious ob­ser­vances. How­ev­er, it seems that fundrais­ing needs have pushed the Gov­ern­ment to make that cal­cu­lat­ed risk. NL­CB chair­man Ken Em­rith con­firmed that one of his or­gan­i­sa­tion’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ties is to gen­er­ate rev­enue for the trea­sury. This pri­or­i­ty trumps the con­cerns some would raise for those fam­i­lies who have to deal with gam­bling ad­dic­tions, even those with al­ready lim­it­ed dis­pos­able in­comes. The choice to par­tic­i­pate still re­mains with the play­er and the in­di­vid­ual NL­CB booth.

A re­port that the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to raise US$1 bil­lion on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket, fa­cil­i­tat­ed by J.P. Mor­gan and Bank of Amer­i­ca, is con­fir­ma­tion that we need mon­ey. This fol­lows Min­is­ter Jear­lean John’s FDI quests to the UAE and Chi­na. Didn’t the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions of 2015-2025 leave enough mon­ey to run the coun­try? What have our suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments done to earn out­side of putting the bur­den on cit­i­zens?

A few of my for­mer teach­ing col­leagues feel some­what swin­dled them­selves, as they want­ed the pre­vi­ous TTUTA ex­ec­u­tive to hold out for the 10% promise from the UNC but thought they had made amends by vot­ing out the ex­ec­u­tive which set­tled for less. How­ev­er, af­ter the Fi­nance Min­is­ter “rat­i­fied” the set­tle­ment and the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter iden­ti­fied funds to pay teach­ers in the bud­get, TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said that there will be no “promised” in­creas­es at the end of Jan­u­ary.

Teach­ers are ac­tu­al­ly fac­ing a re­duc­tion with the in­creased NIS de­duc­tions. Quite a few teach­ers have been seen wear­ing red in qui­et protest. Ashe has al­so said that his union is con­tem­plat­ing a mass ral­ly on the is­sue. With the State of Emer­gency sched­uled to be lift­ed on Jan­u­ary 31st, 2026, the Gov­ern­ment could see its first protest soon af­ter.

We will have “Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions” af­ter the SoE is lift­ed, which seems to be a new name for “hotspots.”

Af­ter the re­moval of the Maduros from pow­er in Venezuela, all “nar­coter­ror­ist boat strikes” have ceased. Would this mean that there will be a re­sump­tion in il­lic­it trade be­tween Venezuela and our coun­try? Has US Pres­i­dent Trump turned his at­ten­tion to Green­land and his back on our re­gion with the Amer­i­can oil ma­jors play­ing hard­ball? Did Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do’s pre­sen­ta­tion of her No­bel Peace Prize medal to him reawak­en his sup­port of her lead­er­ship as­pi­ra­tions again? Pres­i­dent Ro­driguez is danc­ing to his tune, so democ­ra­cy and nat­ur­al re­sources may not re­turn to the Venezue­lan peo­ple too soon. Do we stand to ben­e­fit? If so, un­der which cir­cum­stances and how soon?