Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany

The of­fi­cial re­sults of the April 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion tell a sto­ry of re­duced vot­er turnout. In 2020, the turnout was 58.08%, while in 2025, the turnout was 53.93%.

There has been a per­sis­tent re­duced turnout in the sev­en con­stituen­cies in the north­west penin­su­la of Trinidad, which have con­tin­ued to re­turn the low­est in­di­vid­ual con­stituen­cy turnout num­bers for the en­tire coun­try for a sec­ond gen­er­al elec­tion in a row.

Those con­stituen­cies are:

(i) Laven­tille West (35.20%),

(ii) Port-of-Spain South (36.09%),

(iii) Laven­tille East/Mor­vant (38.77%),

(iv) Diego Mar­tin West (41.24%),

(v) Port-of-Spain S North/St Ann’s West (42.11%),

(vi) Diego Mar­tin North East (42.23%), and

(vii) Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral (44.39%).

This part of the coun­try has been re­gard­ed as a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment strong­hold. How­ev­er, in 2020, their sup­port lev­els for the PNM were all high­er than 2025, de­spite be­ing be­low 50% turnout.

The 2020 turnout per­cent­ages were:

(i) Port-of-Spain South (42.33%),

(ii) Laven­tille West (43.71%),

(iii) Diego Mar­tin West (46.67%),

(iv) Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West (46.74%),

(v) Laven­tille East/Mor­vant (47.17%),

(vi) Diego Mar­tin North East (47.34%), and

(vii) Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral (48.45%).

This lev­el of de­clin­ing turnout in these PNM strong­holds may be in­dica­tive of a deep­er prob­lem that the par­ty faces in its strong­holds that, per­haps, is be­ing masked by the first-past-the-post (FPTP) sys­tem. The PNM is win­ning those seats, but their de­clin­ing turnout in com­pet­i­tive gen­er­al elec­tions is in­dica­tive of grow­ing vot­er ap­a­thy in this part of the coun­try.

What hap­pened in the last gen­er­al elec­tion was the ad­di­tion of two oth­er PNM con­stituen­cies to this list that had less than 50% turnout. Those two were: (i) Ari­ma, re­duc­tion from 51.13% in 2020 to 49.19% in 2025, and (ii) St Ann’s East, re­duc­tion from 50.21% in 2020 to 44.98% in 2025. Fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be re­quired to delve in­to this per­sis­tent ap­a­thy in the north­west penin­su­la, as well as the ad­di­tion of Ari­ma and St Ann’s East in 2025.

The PNM won all nine of these con­stituen­cies, but there seems to be a spillover ef­fect in con­nect­ed and shared bound­ary con­stituen­cies such as Aranguez/St Joseph, a re­duc­tion from 63.94% in 2020 to 60.06% in 2025, and Tu­na­puna, a re­duc­tion from 63.12% in 2020 to 58.26% in 2025. There was a po­lit­i­cal change from PNM to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in those con­stituen­cies.

At the oth­er end of the spec­trum of this turnout ma­trix was a de­cline in turnout in con­stituen­cies held by the UNC, de­spite their com­par­a­tive­ly high­er turnout. While the nine low­est con­stituen­cies in Trinidad with turnout be­low 50% were all held by the PNM, the nine high­est turnout con­stituen­cies in 2025 were all tak­en by the UNC.

The high­est turnout con­stituen­cies in 2025 were:

(i) Moru­ga/Table­land (65.38%),

(ii) Ch­agua­nas West (62.14%),

(iii) St Au­gus­tine (60.60%),

(iv)Aranguez/St Joseph (60.06%),

(v) Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la (59.94%),

(vi) Fyz­abad (59.78%),

(vii) Oropouche East (59.60%),

(vi­ii) Clax­ton Bay (59.31%), and

(ix) Cou­va North (58.88%).

In 2020, the nine high­est turnout con­stituen­cies were:

(i) Moru­ga/Table­land (69.35%),

(ii) Pointe-a-Pierre (66.21%),

(iii) Fyz­abad (65.74%),

(iv) La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro (64.29%),

(v) St Joseph (63.94%),

(vi) Ch­agua­nas East (63.60%),

(vii) Tu­na­puna (63.12%),

(vi­ii) St Au­gus­tine (63.02%), and

(ix) Ma­yaro (62.55%).

The PNM lost La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, St Joseph and Tu­na­puna among those nine con­stituen­cies be­tween 2020 and 2025, amidst de­clin­ing turnout. The mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy of Moru­ga/Table­land was the top turnout con­stituen­cy in 2020 and again the high­est turnout con­stituen­cy in 2025. In both elec­tions, the UNC won that seat.

Over in To­ba­go, the 2025 turnout was To­ba­go East (52.58%) and To­ba­go West (49.82%). In 2020, the turnout was To­ba­go East (56.76%) and To­ba­go West (49.88%). This re­duced turnout in both con­stituen­cies saw a shift from PNM to TPP. The low­er turnout was on­ly mar­gin­al in To­ba­go West, and the PNM can­di­date lost by 109 votes, while in To­ba­go East, the mar­gin of vic­to­ry for the TPP over the PNM was larg­er at 2,748 votes. This sit­u­a­tion in To­ba­go was test­ed last month in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, where the TPP won all 15 seats that were con­test­ed. Based on the map­ping of polling di­vi­sion re­sults from the April 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion on­to elec­toral dis­tricts for the THA elec­tions, it ap­peared that the PNM was lead­ing in five dis­tricts.

These were pro­ject­ed to be:

(i) Buc­coo/Mt. Pleas­ant,

(ii) Dar­rell Spring/Whim,

(iii) Lam­beau/Low­lands,

(iv) Ply­mouth/Black Rock, and

(v) Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill.

How­ev­er, the ground moved fur­ther against the PNM as all five fell to the TPP as part of their 15–0 clean sweep. The pre­lim­i­nary re­sults pub­lished by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion in­di­cat­ed that there was a 50.69% turnout, which was high­er than the 1996 and 2017 THA elec­tions.

If there is vot­er ap­a­thy in both is­lands, why has the da­ta shown the PNM more vul­ner­a­ble to it than any oth­er par­ty?

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.