Shal­iza Has­sanali and Jesse Ramdeo

The po­lit­i­cal land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go wit­nessed a shift ahead of to­mor­row’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion, as for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Tabaquite MP, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, joined the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Haynes-Al­leyne, who was re­placed by at­tor­ney Sean Sobers as the UNC’s can­di­date for the Tabaquite con­stituen­cy, em­pha­sised her be­lief in na­tion-build­ing and her com­mit­ment to work­ing to­geth­er with all par­ties for the greater good of T&T.

Speak­ing at the PNM’s fi­nal ral­ly at Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah, Tacarigua, Haynes-Al­leyne ex­pressed that the PNM had trans­formed, be­com­ing a more flex­i­ble and vi­brant or­gan­i­sa­tion. “I’ve al­ways be­lieved that 2025 would be a trans­for­ma­tive year,” she said. “The PNM has put in the work to make it­self a more flex­i­ble and vi­brant or­gan­i­sa­tion to present to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She re­ceived a warm wel­come from PNM sup­port­ers and shared the front row with for­mer UNC mem­ber Lar­ry Lal­la, out­go­ing Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, as well as PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Ram­bal­ly, who served in the UNC for five years, crit­i­cised UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship. Ram­bal­ly, speak­ing for the first time on a PNM stage, said the UNC would like­ly lose the elec­tion, lead­ing to a fall­out with­in its Coali­tion of In­ter­est.

Ram­bal­ly de­nounced Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship. He fur­ther crit­i­cised the UNC for us­ing in­ter­net in­flu­encers and ex­ter­nal tac­tics like Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca. “The PNM is in­clu­sive of every­one re­gard­less of race, gen­der and re­li­gion. This is per­haps the biggest dif­fer­ence I have ob­served be­tween this par­ty and the next,” he said, re­fer­ring to the UNC.

He warned that af­ter the UNC los­es, their coali­tion would be­gin to fall apart, with ex­posed deals and in­fight­ing soon to fol­low. He called on cit­i­zens to re­ject lead­er­ship that pro­motes hate and di­vi­sive­ness.

Fos­ter Cum­mings, the PNM’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary, al­so ad­dressed the crowd and urged first-time vot­ers not to sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s par­ty. He crit­i­cised the UNC’s gov­er­nance from 2010 to 2015, urg­ing cit­i­zens to re­tire Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar from ac­tive pol­i­tics.