00:00According to the economist and former minister, the recent cabinet reshuffle will achieve
00:06nothing in such limited time now that the election date has been called.
00:11He describes the entire process of the swearing-in and reshuffling as cosmetic.
00:17Brown believes that the message the Stuart Young administration is trying to push is
00:22that the government ministries have new faces and the new heads should be given a chance.
00:29He says the PNM has played its hand well but fundamentally it will come down to more than
00:35just that.
00:59He also shared his view on why Dr Keith Rowley chose to remain at the helm of the party as
01:15political leader.
01:16So clearly Dr Rowley is in charge of the party mechanisms.
01:21If he said he was leaving office and he wanted to leave and he felt completely comfortable
01:26with Mr Young, he would not be retaining the position of political leader.
01:31The mere fact that he has retained the position of leader, political leader, would suggest
01:35that he is making certain that he keeps the party organisation in position, in order and
01:42aligned with the candidate who is going to lead the country into an election.
01:49Meanwhile, opposition MP Bari Peddareth tells us the United National Congress has been on
01:55the ground since 2024 preparing for the election.
02:00He notes that the UNC's level of readiness is not contingent on the rolling out or selection
02:05of candidates.
02:06He says they are not phased by the PNM.
02:09We have our election machinery and our election preparedness for the next four days completed
02:15since last year, November.
02:17And even media houses would be very familiar with the UNC's general election preparedness
02:22because we would have paid and we would have done a lot of our advertising at all media
02:28houses including CPN, TV6 and Trinidad Express since last November.
02:33So we were definitely not caught flat-footed at all.
02:37We are very much prepared.
02:39MP Peddareth also responds to concerns over the possible failure of the UNC's Coalition
02:45of Interests with other parties in the lead-up to the April election.
02:50This in light of what happened with the People's Partnership in the past.
02:54How do we manage the affairs of the Coalition of Interests in terms of the responsibilities
03:01of the partners, whether it's political parties, trade unions, but also more importantly I
03:07think it would be a shared commonality in terms of our ideology, what our expectations
03:12are and how we expect to govern Trinidad and Tobago.
03:15So I think that is the fundamental difference this time around.
03:19Nicole M Romany, TV6 News.
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