CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to­day cast his vote in the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion and de­scribed the process as smooth and or­der­ly.

Speak­ing to the me­dia af­ter vot­ing, Young not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant turnout at his polling sta­tion.

"There was quite a long line of peo­ple, which I was pleased to see. It is cer­tain­ly the longest line I have been in since I have been vot­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go," Young said. "It au­gurs well."

Young al­so shared that his son, vot­ing for the first time, was able to com­plete the process quick­ly. He stat­ed that the turnout in­di­cat­ed a strong pub­lic in­ter­est in the elec­tion and that cit­i­zens were tak­ing their civic du­ties se­ri­ous­ly.

When asked about the im­por­tance of the elec­tion out­come for the lead­er­ship of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Young said:

"The vic­to­ry for tonight is im­por­tant for the coun­try first, and then for the par­ty that wins."

He ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the PNM would con­tin­ue in gov­er­nance and said he was sat­is­fied with the cam­paign his par­ty had run.

Young de­scribed the PNM’s cam­paign as clean, in­for­ma­tive, and com­pre­hen­sive, em­pha­sis­ing that the par­ty pre­sent­ed a 190-page man­i­festo to the elec­torate. He added that he had seen in­creased en­thu­si­asm from young vot­ers.

On the vot­ing process na­tion­wide, the Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed that re­ports from the PNM’s in­ter­nal struc­ture and the me­dia in­di­cat­ed that vot­ing was pro­ceed­ing smooth­ly, al­though there were some in­stances of longer wait­ing times at cer­tain sta­tions.

Re­spond­ing to the Op­po­si­tion’s call for a com­mis­sion of in­quiry in­to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), Young said he viewed it as an at­tempt to pre­pare for elec­tion pe­ti­tions. He crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as con­tin­ued at­tacks on the EBC by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Re­gard­ing ob­serv­er mis­sions mon­i­tor­ing the elec­tions, Young said he had no di­rect feed­back from them yet, but that he ex­pect­ed them to car­ry out their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­de­pen­dent­ly.

In re­sponse to ques­tions about mar­gin­al seats, Young said he was sat­is­fied with the PNM’s ef­forts and the cam­paign that had been run, stat­ing that the par­ty had pro­vid­ed vot­ers with sub­stan­tial in­for­ma­tion to make their de­ci­sions.

Young in­di­cat­ed that he ex­pect­ed to se­cure his con­stituen­cy and would pro­ceed to Bal­isi­er House af­ter do­ing so.

On the ques­tion of form­ing a gov­ern­ment with a nar­row ma­jor­i­ty, Young de­clined to spec­u­late, stat­ing that the PNM would wait for the elec­tion re­sults and pro­ceed ac­cord­ing­ly.