Ke­jan Haynes

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The Com­mon­wealth Ob­serv­er Group’s fi­nal re­port on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion has raised mul­ti­ple con­cerns about the coun­try’s elec­toral en­vi­ron­ment, high­light­ing al­le­ga­tions of bribery, gaps in cam­paign fi­nance laws, vot­er dis­en­gage­ment, un­equal me­dia ac­cess, and un­der­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of women in Par­lia­ment.

The ob­servers were in T&T from April 19 to May 5, 2025, to mon­i­tor the elec­tion, which was held on April 28. In their as­sess­ment, they found the over­all process to be cred­i­ble and peace­ful but point­ed to key ar­eas that re­quire ur­gent re­form.

Among the most se­ri­ous is­sues flagged were re­ports of bribery on elec­tion day. The Ob­serv­er Group said it had re­ceived ac­counts of al­leged vote-buy­ing and oth­er elec­toral of­fences. While spe­cif­ic cas­es were not de­tailed in the re­port, the group urged au­thor­i­ties to prompt­ly in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute any vi­o­la­tions. It warned that fail­ure to act could un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in fu­ture elec­tions and called for swift le­gal ac­tion to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty and de­ter sim­i­lar con­duct.

The re­port al­so ex­am­ined the coun­try’s cam­paign fi­nanc­ing rules and found sig­nif­i­cant reg­u­la­to­ry gaps. While in­di­vid­ual can­di­dates are sub­ject to a $50,000 spend­ing cap un­der the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, po­lit­i­cal par­ties are not bound by any such lim­its. Nor are they re­quired to dis­close the sources of their fund­ing or pro­vide au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments.

The ob­servers re­peat­ed a rec­om­men­da­tion first made by their coun­ter­parts a decade ear­li­er: that Par­lia­ment should pass the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple (Amend­ment) Bill 2020. This bill in­cludes pro­vi­sions for do­na­tion lim­its, manda­to­ry dis­clo­sures, reg­is­tra­tion of po­lit­i­cal par­ties with the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), and equal ac­cess to state and pri­vate me­dia dur­ing cam­paigns. De­spite be­ing in­tro­duced in 2015 and re­vised over the years, the leg­is­la­tion has not been en­act­ed.

In ad­di­tion to call­ing for the pas­sage of the amend­ment bill, the re­port rec­om­mend­ed that a for­mal sys­tem be es­tab­lished to mon­i­tor cam­paign spend­ing by both par­ties and in­di­vid­ual can­di­dates. This would in­clude manda­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tions of the source of funds used dur­ing the cam­paign. The ob­servers ar­gued that such mea­sures were es­sen­tial to cre­at­ing a lev­el play­ing field and en­hanc­ing trans­paren­cy in po­lit­i­cal fi­nanc­ing. They al­so urged Par­lia­ment to give the EBC the le­gal au­thor­i­ty to en­force spend­ing lim­its and in­ves­ti­gate vi­o­la­tions.

Turnout falls to 20-year low amid grow­ing ap­a­thy

The re­port al­so flagged a sharp drop in vot­er turnout, which fell to 54 per cent—the low­est in two decades. The group de­scribed this as part of a wider trend of dis­en­gage­ment and de­clin­ing con­fi­dence in the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem, par­tic­u­lar­ly among young peo­ple.

“This de­clin­ing vot­er turnout in elec­tions cor­re­sponds with an in­creas­ing sense of ap­a­thy, as heard by the COG, among the cit­i­zen­ry in Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly among the youth.”

It urged the EBC to in­ten­si­fy civic ed­u­ca­tion and ex­pand out­reach ef­forts to re­verse this trend and pro­mote greater par­tic­i­pa­tion in fu­ture elec­tions.

EBC vis­i­bil­i­ty and bound­ary changes un­der scruti­ny

The EBC was al­so sin­gled out for its lim­it­ed vis­i­bil­i­ty and pub­lic en­gage­ment dur­ing the elec­tion pe­ri­od. While the com­mis­sion was praised for its lo­gis­ti­cal han­dling of the poll it­self, ob­servers felt it need­ed to do more to ed­u­cate vot­ers and com­mu­ni­cate with the me­dia.

The re­port al­so raised con­cerns about the EBC’s han­dling of bound­ary changes. In De­cem­ber 2024, the Com­mis­sion re­drew the bound­aries of 16 con­stituen­cies and re­named five oth­ers. While done in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion, the re­port said the EBC should im­prove the trans­paren­cy of this process.

The re­port rec­om­mend­ed reg­u­lar press brief­in­gs, pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paigns, and im­proved co­or­di­na­tion with jour­nal­ists to keep the elec­torate well-in­formed through­out the elec­toral cy­cle.

It al­so raised con­cerns about the EBC’s han­dling of bound­ary changes. In De­cem­ber 2024, the com­mis­sion re­drew the bound­aries of 16 con­stituen­cies and re­named five oth­ers. Al­though the process was car­ried out in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion, the re­port urged the EBC to en­hance trans­paren­cy in how such changes are made.

Con­cerns over state me­dia bias and lack of reg­u­la­tion

The re­port al­so ex­am­ined the role of the me­dia in the elec­tion and found that while the press in T&T op­er­ates freely and is gen­er­al­ly re­spect­ed by the pub­lic, there were con­cerns about un­equal cov­er­age dur­ing the cam­paign. Specif­i­cal­ly, it found that the gov­ern­ing par­ty re­ceived dis­pro­por­tion­ate ex­po­sure on state me­dia plat­forms. Ob­servers rec­om­mend­ed the in­tro­duc­tion of leg­is­la­tion to guar­an­tee eq­ui­table ac­cess to state-owned me­dia for all par­ties and in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates.

In ad­di­tion, the re­port high­light­ed the lack of a bind­ing me­dia code of con­duct. It pro­posed that the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty col­lab­o­rate with me­dia hous­es to de­vel­op clear pro­fes­sion­al guide­lines for elec­tion cov­er­age. Me­dia pro­fes­sion­als were al­so en­cour­aged to re­vive the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and to cre­ate a vol­un­tary code fo­cused on eth­i­cal po­lit­i­cal re­port­ing.

Gen­der gap per­sists

On the is­sue of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the re­port ac­knowl­edged the his­toric achieve­ment of hav­ing women in the coun­try’s three top po­lit­i­cal po­si­tions—Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader—for the first time. How­ev­er, it not­ed that this sym­bol­ic progress did not ex­tend to Par­lia­ment as a whole. The share of women elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and ap­point­ed to the Sen­ate re­mained be­low the Caribbean av­er­age of 41 per cent.

Ob­servers point­ed out that the over­all num­ber of women in elect­ed of­fice had de­clined since 2015. While the le­gal frame­work al­lows for equal par­tic­i­pa­tion, the group said struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers con­tin­ue to lim­it the abil­i­ty of women to en­gage mean­ing­ful­ly in pol­i­tics. To ad­dress this, the re­port rec­om­mend­ed that Par­lia­ment es­tab­lish a con­sul­ta­tive com­mit­tee to ex­plore strate­gies for in­creas­ing fe­male par­tic­i­pa­tion.

It al­so urged the gov­ern­ment to adopt and im­ple­ment the Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy on Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment. The pol­i­cy is in­tend­ed to sup­port full par­tic­i­pa­tion by women, men and girls in all as­pects of po­lit­i­cal and civic life and to guar­an­tee equal ac­cess to progress.

These find­ings formed part of the wider sec­tion of the re­port that dealt with par­tic­i­pa­tion and in­clu­sion. Ob­servers al­so ex­am­ined the en­gage­ment of civ­il so­ci­ety, peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and cit­i­zen ob­servers, and found short­com­ings in each area. They called on the Gov­ern­ment and the EBC to take more proac­tive steps to in­te­grate these groups in­to the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process.

The re­port con­clud­ed that while the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion re­flect­ed the will of the peo­ple and was con­duct­ed in a gen­er­al­ly peace­ful and or­der­ly man­ner, there are crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion­al and le­gal re­forms need­ed to safe­guard the in­tegri­ty and in­clu­sive­ness of fu­ture elec­tions.

The ob­servers said their rec­om­men­da­tions were of­fered in the spir­it of strength­en­ing T&T’s democ­ra­cy and called on all stake­hold­ers to take them se­ri­ous­ly.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to EBC’s Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis for com­ment. She said she was cur­rent­ly out of the coun­try and had not yet read the re­port, but as­sured that she would do so up­on her re­turn and pro­vide a re­sponse.