Gushing PM Kamla,stoic PNM Manning Post-election
analysis By Rickey Singh
THE WIDELY expected “change” of government in Port-of-Spain has taken place with a new administration in Port-of-Spain controlling 29 of the 41 parliamentary seats.. And yesterday, the Elections and Boundaries Commission  (EBC) was working on the details of Monday’s election to provide an assessment of turn out of voters and percentages of support polled by the victorious People’s Partnership and the defeated People’s National Movement. .
The extent of the parliamentary gains at Monday’s poll may have come as a surprise for even the hastily put together “People’s Partnership” coalition with its “time for change” mantra during the election campaign.
Yesterday, an effusive Kamla Persad-Bissessar was creating history with her official oath-taking ceremony as Trinidad and Tobago’s first woman Prime Minister and leader of a coalition administration that has achieved a massive three-fifths parliamentary majority.
In sharp contrast, Patrick Manning, in and out of government for some years, and head of three consecutive administrations over the past nine years, was yesterday contemplating a future that could well include surrendering  leadership of his PNM.
Monday’s defeat marked the second occasion that Manning lost state power at a snap general election called by him, this time even before halfway of a five-year term.
Perhaps more than most, if not all, of his PNM’s key decision- makers, Manning would have more correctly interpreted the harsh meaning of the so-called “Kamlamania” frenzy that had swept the electoral landscape of this nation. Yet, he never wilted and has remained stoic in the face of a humiliating defeat.
Now, as he prepares to meet with his party’s central committee colleagues, he would certainly have one of them very much in mind–Dr Keith Rowley.
He was the PNM’s candidate whose mixed messages of “support” for party as distinct from “leader” would undoubtedly have also contributed to Manning’s loss of the reins of state power.
Monday’s landslide victory for Persad-Bissessar’s
People’s Partnership Coalition (PPC) was only less humiliating for the PNM than that suffered in 1986 by the 33-3 landslide of another coalition arrangement led by a then National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR).
Every new government needs time to settle down to reflect on policies and programmes to be pursued consistent, first of all, with its election manifesto.

Demise of ole politics?

The PPC, therefore, has its work clearly cut out once the full cabinet has been appointed under ‘madam PM Kamla’–as media headlines have been saluting her.
It needs to be quite sensitive to the laudable promise made to work to change the culture of governance that could well result in the demise of the politics that has for far too long afflicted inflicted the country—an ethnic-based  virus.
In this sense, it must be evident, even to PPC’s opponents, that the level of popular support received on Monday, across the ethnic divide, augurs very well for the laying of a solid foundation  for this qualtitative change  to seriously begin to take shape under the first woman-led govenment in Trinidad and Tobago.
The rest of the Caribbean Community, and other plural societies in particular–Guyana and Suriname for example–would be monitoring the progress of change.
The UNC–PPC’s principal coalition partner, and its allies, Congress of People (COP), and those with trade union and civil society bases, have the obligation to make proper use of its three-fifths parliamentary strength in the 21-member House of Representatives.

The CCJ
The assessment will, of course, be based on initiatives taken to foster policies and programmes that build confidence at home as well as within CARICOM, of which Trinidad and Tobago is a leading founder-member state.
Whatever its domestic shortcomings, the PNM has, over the years, acquired a proud record in helping to foster and strengthen the region’s economic integration movement that stands as CARICOM.
Therefore, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar and her cabinet can expect watchful eyes on how the PPC maintains, reduces or strengthens relations between Trinidad and Tobago and the rest of CARICOM.
One issue that readily comes to mind for advancing, where the PNM had fallen short, is completing arrangements to access membership of the Port-of-Spain-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
With a whopping three-fifths parliamentary majority, and given Manning’s own often expressed support, there should be no quibbling about Trinidad and Tobago having the CCJ–a most vital institution of our Community–as its final appeal court, and becoming the fourth to do so, after Belize
However, it is appreciated that priorities in areas of basic social services (water, health and education) as well as changes in fiscal and economic policies must come first.
What would be a pity is to witness the PPC spending quality time in chasing after issues linked to an old poltics–the settling scores and, consequently, minimising the laudable promise of “change” so overwhelmingly endorsed at Monday’s poll..
Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar’s firm promise, as reported yesterday, of “an end to divisive politics” is, therefore, a welcome assurance, one best assessed with the passage of time. For now, let the PPPC’s “time for change” programme begin.