Gary Grif­fith, Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), dis­cussed the on­go­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, not­ing that it has been a clean elec­tion thus far. He com­mend­ed the ef­forts of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), and the CARI­COM and Com­mon­wealth ob­servers. "This is ex­act­ly what this coun­try need­ed at this time," he said, high­light­ing the im­por­tance of en­sur­ing trans­paren­cy and le­git­i­ma­cy in the elec­toral process. He fur­ther stat­ed that any doubts re­gard­ing the le­git­i­ma­cy of the elec­tion could lead to in­sta­bil­i­ty and af­fect the coun­try’s pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Grif­fith em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of ac­cept­ing the elec­tion out­come, re­gard­less of which par­ty wins. "To­mor­row, we are all cit­i­zens of the same coun­try. Let us ap­pre­ci­ate and ac­cept the de­ci­sion made by the pub­lic," he said.

Grif­fith al­so ex­pressed con­cern over vi­o­la­tions of the law, specif­i­cal­ly re­gard­ing the pro­mo­tion of po­lit­i­cal par­ties. He not­ed that there has been sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tion by in­di­vid­u­als who ap­pear to be un­aware of the le­gal re­stric­tions in place. He re­ferred to the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, par­tic­u­lar­ly sec­tions 91 to 93, which pro­hib­it in­flu­enc­ing vot­ers through un­due pro­mo­tion of po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Grif­fith point­ed to an al­der­man who was ac­tive­ly pro­mot­ing a po­lit­i­cal par­ty on so­cial me­dia. "That is against the law," he stat­ed. "An in­di­vid­ual in such a po­si­tion should be aware of the le­gal bound­aries. I be­lieve this in­di­vid­ual should be ar­rest­ed im­me­di­ate­ly."

He con­clud­ed by re­it­er­at­ing that the pub­lic needs to re­spect the law and en­sure that all elec­tion-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties are con­duct­ed with­in its frame­work. "Peo­ple need to calm down, take a deep breath, and recog­nise that mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tion must be done with­in the bound­aries of the law," he added.