No jump up and wave

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, pol­i­tics has been ex­treme­ly com­bat­ive for 16 years run­ning. No change in sight. In Cari­com, the rules of en­gage­ment are chang­ing, and in­ter­ests are di­verg­ing, so some shift is pos­si­ble. In coun­tries across the hemi­sphere, au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism, stri­den­cy, more ide­ol­o­gy, maybe some dis­rup­tion, some cau­tion. And around the world, coun­tries are more anx­ious about the fu­ture and their place in it. Un­cer­tain­ty and per­haps, more volatil­i­ty.

Where are we head­ed in T&T, giv­en the swirl of con­tro­ver­sies we have been liv­ing through lo­cal­ly?

The Bud­get in ear­ly Oc­to­ber may give us some clar­i­ty on non-en­er­gy in­vest­ments and ex­ports. Giv­en the storm over the in­de­pen­dence of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, we may well be head­ed for an elect­ed pres­i­dent. The Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill to re­strain crim­i­nals saw lit­tle re­straint from any quar­ter. And amend­ments to the Pro­cure­ment Bill ...well...how can I not be dis­ap­point­ed? The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) had al­ready de­stroyed it with amend­ments. This Gov­ern­ment could have re­in­stat­ed the 2015 law, unan­i­mous­ly passed in the Sen­ate and with­out PNM sup­port in the low­er House in 2014. But it did­nt. The Gov­ern­ment chose in­stead to in­crease the loose­ness which the PNM in­sti­tu­tion­alised.