Prof Hamid Ghany

The re­sult of the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion had al­ready been baked in­to the cake of the Au­gust 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. There were 141 elec­toral dis­tricts in Trinidad for the 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. The PNM con­test­ed all 141 dis­tricts and earned 131,342 votes. The UNC on­ly con­test­ed 110 elec­toral dis­tricts and earned 175,635 votes, which was 44,293 votes more than the PNM, even though the UNC con­test­ed 31 few­er seats than the PNM.

Some­how, this very favourable elec­toral re­sult for the UNC was con­vert­ed in­to an ex­ter­nal­ly fund­ed in­sur­gency de­signed to desta­bilise the par­ty ahead of the gen­er­al elec­tion that was due in 2025. It was based on an er­ro­neous claim that as long as Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mained as leader, the UNC would not be able to win the next Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

That ar­gu­ment was based on an as­sess­ment of the 7-7 tie in cor­po­ra­tions be­tween the PNM and UNC and failed to ad­dress the raw elec­toral da­ta across Trinidad. They mea­sured seats for their nar­ra­tive and not votes.

By the end of 2023, there were ru­mours of an at­tempt be­ing mount­ed to get ten of the 19 UNC MPs to sign a let­ter to be tak­en to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to have Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­moved as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. This would have plunged the UNC in­to tur­moil.

There was talk on the ground that hav­ing failed to get enough MPs to be­tray her, the next tar­get would be the in­ter­nal elec­tions for the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive (NA­TEX). Just af­ter the Ides of March in 2024, the chal­lenge to her lead­er­ship came in­to the open for an elec­tion that was due in June 2024.

Their strat­e­gy back­fired and in­stead mo­bilised UNC vot­ers as Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s slate scored a re­sound­ing vic­to­ry (con­sis­tent with the lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­sults). Ahead of those in­ter­nal elec­tions, then PNM po­lit­i­cal leader and prime min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, took the un­usu­al step of in­ter­fer­ing in the UNC elec­tions. On Fri­day, June 7, 2024, he told the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives:

“So the Op­po­si­tion Leader, fum­ing about every­thing and hop­ing for a knock­out punch, Madam Speak­er, on the 16th of June, those flim­sy arms ‘eh knock out no­body’, and I could say, as I sup­port her, leave her right there and do not move her. Leave her right there. Hon Mem­bers: [Desk thump­ing]” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, June 7, 2024, pp 57-58).

Two things emerge here. One was that Dr Row­ley was so cock­sure that the con­trived ad­verse me­dia nar­ra­tives about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship would work in favour of the PNM, and sec­ond­ly, that por­tray­ing her as a frail, weak woman would con­vince the pub­lic that the UNC had a weak leader who was un­e­lec­table, hence his de­sire to see her re­main in con­trol of her par­ty.

Ei­ther he was mis­lead­ing the coun­try and his sup­port­ers, or he was mis­read­ing the coun­try. He, to­geth­er with the PNM strate­gists, would have known since Au­gust 2023 how vul­ner­a­ble the PNM had be­come just by analysing the elec­toral da­ta from the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

By June 2024, who­ev­er had ex­ter­nal­ly fund­ed the failed in­sur­gency in the UNC was not go­ing to stop the pro-UNC jug­ger­naut that was build­ing in the shad­ow of some con­tin­ued con­trived ad­verse me­dia nar­ra­tives about the like­ly fail­ure of the UNC.

Both the PNM and the UNC strate­gists knew what the pic­ture on the ground looked like. Of the eleven mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies that I had cal­cu­lat­ed for the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion as con­tained in the Guardian Me­dia poll, six of them were held by the UNC (Barataria-San Juan, Ch­agua­nas East, Clax­ton Bay, Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la, Ma­yaro, and Moru­ga/Table­land) and five of them were held by the PNM (Aranguez/St Joseph, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, San Fer­nan­do West, To­co/San­gre Grande, and Tu­na­puna).

Based on the 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­sults, the UNC were on course to re­tain their six mar­gin­al seats, and they were like­ly to pick up the five PNM mar­gin­al seats. Over­lay­ing the 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment polling di­vi­sion elec­tion re­sults on top of the con­stituen­cy gen­er­al elec­tion polling di­vi­sions in the five PNM-held mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies pro­duced the fol­low­ing:

1. ↓Aranguez/St Joseph: PNM 4,054 and UNC 5,201

2. ↓La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro: PNM 3,696 and UNC 4,592

3. ↓San Fer­nan­do West: PNM 4,399 and UNC 4,468

4. ↓To­co/San­gre Grande: PNM 4,370 and UNC 4,682

5. ↓Tu­na­puna: PNM 4,013 and UNC 4,762

The cake was baked since Au­gust 2023. The ex­ter­nal­ly fund­ed in­sur­gency in the UNC that was de­signed to first dis­lodge and then con­trol Per­sad-Bisses­sar failed.

The UNC got stronger be­low the me­dia radar de­spite the dis­trac­tions of in­sur­gents and or­ches­trat­ed res­ig­na­tions. Mean­while, the 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­sults were even­tu­al­ly con­firmed on April 28. Was the coun­try mis­led or mis­read by the PNM?

Prof Hamid Ghany is a Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.