Prof Hamid Ghany

As the one-year an­niver­sary of the elec­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress will be ob­served on Tues­day, and the one-year an­niver­sary of its term in of­fice will be ob­served next Sun­day, as the rest of the Gov­ern­ment was sworn in­to of­fice on May 3, 2025, it is use­ful to do a ret­ro­spec­tive on the elec­tion this week. Next week, a ret­ro­spec­tive will be done on their first year in of­fice.

The re-elec­tion of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the UNC last April 28 came as a shock to many who nev­er thought it could hap­pen. De­spite an opin­ion poll com­mis­sioned by Guardian Me­dia clear­ly show­ing that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was on track to lose all of the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies used in that poll in Trinidad, there was ab­solute in­creduli­ty at the thought.

In many re­spects, there were shift­ing sands still go­ing on with­in the elec­torate as the PNM lost strong­holds such as Point Fortin and La Brea, while To­ba­go West shift­ed late in the fi­nal week of the cam­paign to record a nar­row PNM loss, with vote split­ting work­ing against them. The mar­gin be­tween the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty over the PNM was 109 votes, while there were 1,067 votes cast be­tween sev­en oth­er third par­ties. To­ba­go East was al­ready a lost cause for the PNM. The UNC did not con­test any of the To­ba­go seats and avoid­ed more vote split­ting.

The shift on the ground against the PNM na­tion­wide was a com­bi­na­tion of in­creased an­ti-PNM feel­ing among the elec­torate and dis­il­lu­sion­ment among thou­sands of PNM sup­port­ers. The ef­fect of this was that many el­e­ments of the na­tion­al me­dia were caught off guard and had dif­fi­cul­ty pro­cess­ing these re­sults.

The turnout de­clined from 58.04% in 2020 to 53.92%. The UNC con­test­ed few­er seats than in 2020 and in­creased its share of the vote from 309,654 votes in 39 seats in Trinidad in 2020 to 335,161 votes in on­ly 34 seats in Trinidad in 2025. An in­crease of 25,507.

The PNM went down from 322,180 votes in con­test­ing all 41 seats in Trinidad and To­ba­go in 2020 to 224,403 votes in con­test­ing all 41 seats. A de­crease of 97,777 votes. What hap­pened?

There are as­pects of the UNC vic­to­ry and the PNM de­feat that have not been analysed. Some of these fac­tors were: (i) the UNC’s per­for­mance in the 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions were shield­ed from the gen­er­al pub­lic by a me­dia that did not pay at­ten­tion to them; (ii) the UNC’s strat­e­gy of a coali­tion of in­ter­ests en­er­gized wider el­e­ments in the so­ci­ety be­yond UNC sup­port­ers; (iii) the UNC mo­bilised its ground sup­port with an in­ter­nal elec­tion in June 2024 that many in the me­dia thought would frac­ture them, but the op­po­site hap­pened; (iv) the PNM took a de­ci­sion in late 2024 to side­step some of its par­ty tra­di­tions like the par­ty con­ven­tion and in­ter­nal elec­tions that were due; (v) the PNM de­cid­ed to ex­per­i­ment with a twin-head­ed lead­er­ship mod­el that had failed them in To­ba­go in 2021 and was be­ing re­peat­ed again at the na­tion­al lev­el.

In the 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, the UNC con­test­ed on­ly 110 seats out of 141 and got 173,961 votes, while the PNM con­test­ed all 141 seats and got 130,868 votes. This sta­tis­tic was sup­pressed be­cause it like­ly told a sto­ry of UNC resur­gence that would not have been a pre­ferred tra­di­tion­al me­dia nar­ra­tive, giv­en the tra­di­tion­al hos­til­i­ty of the Port-of-Spain-based me­dia hous­es to the UNC.

The pub­lic was fed a false nar­ra­tive that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was no longer a vi­able leader when the 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­toral da­ta was show­ing just the op­po­site.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s strat­e­gy to em­brace a coali­tion of in­ter­ests was ridiculed by the tra­di­tion­al me­dia as a doomed strat­e­gy. In­stead, she was bring­ing new faces and old foes un­der the UNC ban­ner that did not fit the time-worn nar­ra­tive that to be suc­cess­ful in T&T pol­i­tics, you had to have a hege­mon­ic par­ty struc­ture with no coali­tion in­ter­ests and that you had to con­test all of the seats.

That failed think­ing was out of touch with what was hap­pen­ing on the ground. The elec­torate was fed up with a de­te­ri­o­rat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion, poor eco­nom­ic per­for­mance as de­scribed by Colm Im­bert in his af­fi­davit in the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty case, short­ages of for­eign ex­change, and ris­ing in­dis­ci­pline in schools, among oth­er is­sues.

Per­haps the de­ter­mi­na­tion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar was un­der­es­ti­mat­ed by many who viewed her as a lit­tle coun­try girl from Siparia who was not en­ti­tled to be seat­ed at the ta­ble of gov­ern­ment in T&T, far less the Cari­com ta­ble. She did not fit the tra­di­tion­al me­dia stereo­type. Her val­ues are dif­fer­ent to their ex­pec­ta­tions. They do not un­der­stand that she draws her strength from their abuse. She won.

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is 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. He was se­lect­ed by the THA to guide the dis­cus­sions on To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.