Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, has re­newed her call for in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers for this year's gen­er­al elec­tions.

In a state­ment on Thurs­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she wel­comed Cari­com’s in­di­ca­tion that it will de­ploy an Elec­tion Ob­serv­er Mis­sion to over­see this year’s gen­er­al elec­tion in T&T.

How­ev­er, she fur­ther stat­ed, "I fur­ther call on the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to in­vite In­ter­na­tion­al Elec­tion Ob­servers in ad­di­tion to the CARI­COM ob­servers. This will en­sure the deep­est pos­si­ble checks and bal­ances and guar­an­tee that our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process op­er­ates as it should. From 2000 to 2015, Trinidad and To­ba­go had in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers from the Com­mon­wealth Ob­serv­er Group and CARI­COM at all elec­tions."

She said Sep­tem­ber 16, 2024, she wrote to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley stat­ing the UNC firm­ly be­lieves that in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al ob­servers are need­ed to en­sure that our elec­tion is con­duct­ed in a free, fair, and just man­ner, re­flect­ing the true man­date of the peo­ple.

She added that she pro­vid­ed a list of 16 in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) Elec­toral Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions, the OSCE Of­fice for De­mo­c­ra­t­ic In­sti­tu­tions and Hu­man Rights, the Unit­ed Na­tions Elec­toral As­sis­tance Di­vi­sion (UN­EAD), the EU Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion Mis­sions, The Carter Cen­tre: Democ­ra­cy Pro­gram, the In­ter­na­tion­al Foun­da­tion for Elec­toral Sys­tems, and more.