100 days of Kamla 2.0

HER PROMISE was clear and unequivocal. “Six months from today, under a new UNC government, you will be in a safer and happier place in Trinidad and Tobago,” said Kamla Persad-Bissessar, 73, as she was sworn in as Prime Minister on May 1. Today, August 9, 100 days into her second administration, her stewardship of the country can be characterised primarily as a mixture of boldness alongside caution.

That the Prime Minister will do things her own way was signalled from the start. She chose John Jeremie as her attorney general. Instead of occupying mould and flood-plagued Whitehall, she initially held court at home in Phillipine. Reversing past objections to the use of the Red House as a prime ministerial base, she convened the first post-cabinet media briefing there on May 8. At that event, she told a reporter, “I was too nice the last time.” The same figure who routinely assures on the political platform that no prime minister will ever love the citizenry more is also a dragon.

Fire and fury issued from Ms Persad-Bissessar in June as she threatened “deadly force” in response to questionable claims by the Nicolas Maduro administration. If the notion of diplomacy was shattered in that exchange, it was painstakingly reassembled when Ms Persad-Bissessar hosted Narendra Modi on an official visit weeks later.

Similarly audacious was the July 18 declaration of a state of emergency on the advice of newly minted top cop Allister Guevarro. The resort to this crime measure for the second time in the space of months revealed the willingness of the new administration to make tough choices. That is a harbinger of things to come.

Dismantled with breakneck speed were the TTRA, controversial Cepep contracts and the tenure of Central Bank governor Alvin Hilaire. Another bold appointment: former UNC minister Larry Howai. Notable too is Ms Persad-Bissessar’s plan to raise the age limit for alcohol, spirits and beer and to deal with ganja and gaming harms.

Yet, the caution of the mid-year review, which maintained the trajectory of the projected $9 billion deficit, and the dual constituency consultations on stand-your-ground laws and the next budget, reflect an administration that is not rushing to act but steadily taking stock while still attempting to win the population over.

The ongoing constituency-level talks – which must extend to traditional PNM areas and to Tobago if they are to assume real heft – and the maintenance of the Monday Night Forum exercise show a political leader who senses both opportunities and danger. She acknowledges that with great power comes great responsibility. Amid a world defined by economic shocks, geopolitical realignments and environmental crisis, that turns out to be the biggest pitfall her administration potentially faces.