KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning re­mains silent on his nar­row vic­to­ry in the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, an­a­lysts say he must work hard to re­gain the elec­torate’s sup­port if the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) hopes to main­tain its hold on the seat.

Fol­low­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) re­quest for a re­count last week, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion con­firmed the re­vised re­sults. Man­ning se­cured 7,017 votes—nine few­er than ini­tial­ly re­port­ed. UNC’s John Michael Al­i­bo­cus re­ceived 6,344, 13 few­er than the ini­tial count, while the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front gained 502 votes, an in­crease of 12. Re­ject­ed bal­lots rose sharply from 36 to 64.

Man­ning de­clined to com­ment when con­tact­ed, stat­ing on­ly that he had “no com­ment on any­thing,” even be­fore learn­ing the rea­son for the call. De­spite the re­count, the fi­nal out­come re­mained: a nar­row PNM vic­to­ry in what was once a se­cure seat. The re­sult marks a dra­mat­ic shift in a con­stituen­cy once dom­i­nat­ed by his fa­ther, the late Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, who held the seat for 44 con­sec­u­tive years—the longest-serv­ing MP in T&T his­to­ry.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said the slim mar­gin re­flect­ed a broad­er de­cline in PNM sup­port across the coun­try com­pared to the 2020 polls. In 2020, the par­ty had won San Fer­nan­do East by 5,175 votes. This time, many vot­ers chose to stay away.

He said the im­pli­ca­tions are sim­i­lar across con­stituen­cies. The PNM lost Point Fortin and La Brea, once strong­holds, by nar­row mar­gins. The UNC al­so came close in Arou­ca/Mal­oney and Ari­ma.

“This doesn’t write off the PNM but shows a hard­line stance by its mem­ber­ship against its lead­er­ship,” Ra­goonath said.

He not­ed that re­sults like these make it hard­er for an­a­lysts to pre­dict out­comes in the next gen­er­al elec­tion. “The ques­tion is whether the PNM can re­gain the large vote share it had in 2020, which it clear­ly lost in 2025.”

While a seat won by few­er than 1,000 votes is gen­er­al­ly clas­si­fied as mar­gin­al, Ra­goonath sug­gest­ed this the­o­ry may need re­vis­it­ing by 2030, de­pend­ing on the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate and whether the PNM can re­build and re-en­gage its base.

He point­ed out that re­gain­ing sup­port is of­ten dif­fi­cult.

“When a par­ty los­es that lev­el of sup­port, it is hard to bring every­one back. Still, there is hope, giv­en new lead­er­ship, but the coun­try will have to wait and see how the PNM per­forms.”

Re­gard­ing the Man­ning lega­cy, Ra­goonath said, “The son is not the fa­ther.” He em­pha­sised that the younger Man­ning must forge his own path, as con­stituents are now judg­ing him on his record and de­liv­ery.

Ser­vice de­liv­ery has be­come a fo­cal point. Ra­goonath said he was told of grow­ing dis­en­chant­ment in San Fer­nan­do East. Al­i­bo­cus, the UNC chal­lenger, high­light­ed sev­er­al is­sues on the cam­paign trail, in­clud­ing the state of the Co­coyea Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pool. Man­ning re­spond­ed that re­pairs were un­der­way and the pool would soon re­open.

“The PNM seemed to cam­paign re­ac­tive­ly, not proac­tive­ly. They were re­spond­ing to the UNC rather than set­ting their own agen­da. It was as though they were writ­ing their man­i­festo as they went on.”

Asked whether the UNC could build on this mo­men­tum, Ra­goonath said on­ly time would tell. He be­lieves there was no sig­nif­i­cant shift of PNM vot­ers to the UNC, but many un­de­cid­ed vot­ers or those fa­mil­iar with Al­i­bo­cus lent their sup­port. Im­por­tant­ly, many PNM sup­port­ers sim­ply stayed home, con­tribut­ing to the sig­nif­i­cant vote drop in turnout for the par­ty com­pared to 2020.

As for whether this sig­nals a po­lit­i­cal re­align­ment, Ra­goonath said the an­swer will de­pend on whether the UNC can ful­fil its cam­paign promis­es and main­tain vot­er trust through its gov­er­nance.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Shane Mo­hammed echoed these sen­ti­ments, at­tribut­ing the PNM’s de­cline to a sharp fall in vot­er turnout. The UNC gained 25,977 votes over­all, while the PNM lost 97,836 votes com­pared to 2020.

“Some an­gry, tra­di­tion­al PNM vot­ers with­held their bal­lots, and swing vot­ers turned to the UNC,” Mo­hammed said. In San Fer­nan­do East, he not­ed, the UNC typ­i­cal­ly at­tracts around 6,000 votes, and the usu­al mar­gin be­tween the par­ties ranges be­tween 3,000 and 4,000.

“What we saw was that Bri­an Man­ning suf­fered the same fate that Pen­ny Beck­les or Mar­vin Gon­za­les could have suf­fered. Their or­gan­ic sup­port­ers didn’t turn out. They didn’t suf­fer the fate of the en­tire gov­ern­ment, but they did feel the ef­fects of the an­ti-PNM sen­ti­ment,” Mo­hammed ex­plained.

He said San Fer­nan­do East should not yet be clas­si­fied as a mar­gin­al seat, as no two elec­tions are alike. How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged there was a “com­plete hit” and a wave of anger in every con­stituen­cy di­rect­ed at the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Mo­hammed be­lieves the UNC can cap­i­talise on its gains, not­ing that Al­i­bo­cus was a “fan­tas­tic can­di­date,” who con­nect­ed with youth vot­ers, ran an ef­fec­tive cam­paign, and was well known in San Fer­nan­do.

To keep his seat and ex­pand his sup­port, Mo­hammed said Man­ning must re­turn to the grass­roots and lis­ten to con­stituents’ con­cerns, warn­ing that the UNC will be watch­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“The whole par­ty, not just him, needs to go back to the ground and have a con­ver­sa­tion with their peo­ple, and chances are, face their wrath.

“You can­not want to re­con­struct the PNM with­out tak­ing the licks that come with it. They have to take the licks, the abuse, the cuss—every­thing that comes with frus­trat­ed emo­tions.”