On the CNC3 gen­er­al elec­tion night broad­cast, I said that the vic­to­ry by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress was the great­est po­lit­i­cal come­back in the his­to­ry of pol­i­tics in this coun­try.

Dr Er­ic Williams died in of­fice in 1981. George Cham­bers re­signed as Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in 1986 af­ter mas­sive­ly los­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion 33–3 to the NAR. Patrick Man­ning lost in 1995, sur­vived a PNM lead­er­ship chal­lenge from Dr Kei­th Row­ley in 1996, and on­ly re­turned in 2001 by the grace of the pres­i­den­tial dis­cre­tion of ANR Robin­son af­ter an 18–18 tie.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had no pres­i­den­tial favours done for her, and she de­feat­ed all com­ers both in­side and out­side the UNC.

The key to her suc­cess was that af­ter she lost in 2015, she al­ways sub­ject­ed her­self to the will of the UNC elec­torate in 2015, 2017, 2020, and 2022. The par­ty nev­er de­sert­ed her, and she nev­er de­sert­ed them. It is rare for some­one to lose two gen­er­al elec­tions and sur­vive to re­turn to pow­er on the third try.

Her time in the vine­yards of op­po­si­tion for ten years and two elec­tion loss­es was well spent. Hav­ing won the largest vic­to­ry for the UNC ever in any gen­er­al elec­tion (26–13–2), she has not wast­ed time in spend­ing some of that po­lit­i­cal cap­i­tal she earned in last April’s vic­to­ry.

She has tak­en on the prob­lems of crime, gen­er­al law­less­ness, il­lic­it nar­cotics, hu­man traf­fick­ing, gun smug­gling, gang fund­ing, noise pol­lu­tion, and road care­less­ness in the first year of her term.

These prob­lems were cry­ing out for at­ten­tion for a leader, any leader, to take them on by the scruff of the neck. She stepped for­ward af­ter win­ning and is hell­bent on mak­ing changes to the so­ci­ety that are long over­due.

The elec­tion showed that she had spent her time care­ful­ly build­ing a coali­tion of in­ter­ests that saw the UNC con­test­ing few­er seats than in 2020 (34, down from 39) and get­ting more votes than they got in 2020 (335,201 up from 309,654), and the PNM con­test­ing all 41 seats and get­ting few­er votes than in 2020 (224,446 down from 322,180).

All vic­to­ri­ous UNC can­di­dates won their seats with more than 50 per cent of the votes cast in their con­stituen­cies. Among the PNM seats, all but three were won with more than 50 per cent of the votes cast.

The three PNM seats that were won with a plu­ral­i­ty, and not a ma­jor­i­ty, were: (i) Ari­ma (Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, 49.79 per cent, with a mar­gin of 699 over the UNC can­di­date Nigel Moses), (ii) Arou­ca/Lopinot (Mar­vin Gon­za­les, 48.58 per cent, with a mar­gin of 259 over the UNC can­di­date Dr Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj) and (iii) Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca (Do­minic Ro­main, 48.06 per cent, with a mar­gin of 254 over the UNC can­di­date Do­minic Smith).

Two pres­sure groups in so­ci­ety gave overt sup­port to the two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties dur­ing the cam­paign. Fe­l­isha Thomas, Pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), open­ly sup­port­ed the UNC, while Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore, Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, pub­licly pledged her sup­port, at a Steel­band Cham­pi­ons prize dis­tri­b­u­tion on April 15, to then prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young and then min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Ran­dall Mitchell.

The great­est po­lit­i­cal come­back by Per­sad-Bisses­sar was al­so as­sist­ed by Dr Kei­th Row­ley, at­tempt­ing to bend the rules of our po­lit­i­cal cul­ture by re­main­ing as the PNM par­ty leader and ar­rang­ing for Stu­art Young to be­come PM.

It was a hare­brained scheme that was pub­licly an­nounced by Row­ley in an in­ter­view with soon to be re­tired Ex­press po­lit­i­cal ed­i­tor Ria Taitt pub­lished in the Ex­press on No­vem­ber 3, 2024.

In re­sponse to Taitt, who asked him if he saw a sce­nario where he would be a po­lit­i­cal leader, but not PM, Row­ley an­swered this way:

“These are per­mu­ta­tions that the con­sti­tu­tion al­lows, both the lo­cal (PNM) and the na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion. So I don’t know how the de­ci­sion-mak­ing would play out in that sit­u­a­tion. And I am not here speak­ing to that sit­u­a­tion (hap­pen­ing) now, but if, in mak­ing de­ci­sions go­ing for­ward, those per­mu­ta­tions oc­cur, they are all part of the process. And to the ex­tent that that caus­es ex­cite­ment or un­ease in some quar­ters, it is sim­ply that peo­ple are deal­ing with to­mor­row, while to­day is yet to be con­clud­ed…”

Row­ley had care­ful­ly planned this sce­nario since 2024, of him be­ing par­ty leader and Stu­art Young be­ing PM. Faris Al-Rawi de­scribed it as an “ex­per­i­ment”.

The late Fer­die Fer­reira, Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus, and Robert Le Hunte all spoke out against it, but Row­ley had his way.

The PNM did not think that Kam­la was elec­table. When com­bined with the dual lead­er­ship strat­e­gy of Row­ley and Young, they paid a heavy price for un­der­es­ti­mat­ing her. In many re­spects, they are still mak­ing that mis­take to­day.

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.