GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The bat­tle of po­lit­i­cal gi­ants takes place from dawn to dusk (6 am to 6 pm) to­day with key mar­gin­al seats be­ing the tar­get - and heavy se­cu­ri­ty in play.

To­day’s ex­er­cise to elect Par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives - and a Gov­ern­ment- for Trinidad and To­ba­go for the next five years is one which po­lit­i­cal ob­servers and com­men­ta­tors up to yes­ter­day main­tained was “too close to call” af­ter very large num­bers were seen at last Sat­ur­day’s ral­lies by the gov­ern­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and main op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

Yes­ter­day, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion said all sys­tems were “go” for to­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion. It said it had col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice to en­sure that ro­bust se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments have been in­sti­tut­ed to safe­guard vot­ers, elec­tion per­son­nel, and the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral process.

“Our team has worked dili­gent­ly to en­sure that every el­i­gi­ble vot­er can ex­er­cise their right to vote safe­ly and con­fi­dent­ly as they par­tic­i­pate in this vi­tal de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ex­er­cise,” stat­ed Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis yes­ter­day.

The EBC via a state­ment yes­ter­day con­firmed its readi­ness for to­day’s Par­lia­men­tary Elec­tions. The EBC stat­ed that fol­low­ing ex­ten­sive plan­ning, rig­or­ous train­ing, and col­lab­o­ra­tion with stake­hold­ers to ex­e­cute “what is per­haps the sin­gle most lo­gis­ti­cal­ly com­plex ex­er­cise a coun­try can un­der­take”, the Com­mis­sion has car­ried out sev­er­al steps.

The EBC stat­ed that all 2,316 polling sta­tions in T&T have been es­tab­lished and are equipped with the nec­es­sary staffing, ma­te­ri­als and sup­plies.

“In­spec­tions have been con­duct­ed to en­sure that each lo­ca­tion meets high stan­dards of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, func­tion­al­i­ty, and safe­ty,” the EBC added.

Over 13,000 elec­tion of­fi­cials and polling day staff have re­ceived train­ing to equip them with the skills need­ed to as­sist vot­ers and ad­min­is­ter the vot­ing process ef­fi­cient­ly, it said.

It ex­plained the train­ing in­clud­ed vot­ing pro­ce­dures, con­flict res­o­lu­tion strate­gies, and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of health and safe­ty pro­to­cols.

The EBC stat­ed that through a se­ries of na­tion­wide out­reach ini­tia­tives, it had in­formed cit­i­zens about the vot­ing process, polling lo­ca­tions, vot­ers’ rights, elec­toral reg­u­la­tions, and po­ten­tial elec­toral of­fences. Com­pre­hen­sive cam­paigns were al­so con­duct­ed across so­cial me­dia plat­forms, ra­dio, tele­vi­sion, and print me­dia to en­gage and ed­u­cate the pub­lic.

Ac­cord­ing to EBC in­for­ma­tion some 1, 154,708 cit­i­zens are el­i­gi­ble to vote in to­day’s ex­er­cise.

Spe­cial vot­ing for 16,748 peo­ple con­clud­ed yes­ter­day.

Among those vot­ing this morn­ing are Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, at the In­ter­na­tion­al School, West­moor­ings at 9 am and UNC Po­lit­i­cal Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is ex­pect­ed to vote at Her­mitage Pres­by­ter­ian School.

Both lead­ers are seek­ing to cre­ate fur­ther his­to­ry: Young to be­come T&T’s ninth Prime Min­is­ter af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed the coun­try’s eighth on March 17. Per­sad-Bisses­sar hopes to be­come the coun­try’s sec­ond fe­male Prime Min­is­ter af­ter she was elect­ed its first in 2010.

Three-way races dom­i­nate

To­day’s elec­tion for Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to hold seats in T&T’s 41 con­stituen­cies in­volves 161 can­di­dates - in­clud­ing three In­de­pen­dents - and 17 par­ties. The 2020 elec­tion in­volved 151 can­di­dates and 19 po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

To­day’s elec­tion is tak­ing place amid bound­ary changes to 16 con­stituen­cies.

Names have al­so been changed for five con­stituen­cies: Arou­ca/Mal­oney re­named Trinci­ty/Mal­oney, D’Abadie/O’Meara now Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca, Lopinot/Bon Air West is Arou­ca/Lopinot, St Joseph re­named Aranguez/St Joseph and Pointe-a-Pierre now known as Clax­ton Bay.

The area where the largest num­ber of can­di­dates are vy­ing is To­ba­go West - nine.

Three-way races dom­i­nate the con­test in 22 lo­ca­tions in Trinidad among the PNM, UNC and oth­er par­ties.

This is in Ma­yaro, Moru­ga/Table­land, Tabaquite, Clax­ton Bay, Cou­va North, Cou­va South, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin West, Ca­roni Cen­tral, Ca­roni East, Ch­agua­nas West, Fyz­abad, Laven­tille West, Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca, Na­pari­ma, Oropouche East, Oropouche West, Princes Town, San Fer­nan­do East, Siparia, Trinci­ty Mal­oney.

Four way races are tak­ing place in To­co/San­gre Grande, Tu­na­puna, Arou­ca/Lopinot, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, Point Fortin, St Ann’s East and Port-of-Spain North/St Anns’ West.

Five-way con­tests are on in Aranguez /St Joseph, Barataria/San Juan, Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas East, La Brea, St Au­gus­tine and To­ba­go East.

Six-way races are on in Diego Mar­tin North/East, San Fer­nan­do West and Port-of-Spain South.

At­ten­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly on the race in PNM held mar­gin­als: Aranguez/St Joseph (a five-way race), To­co/San­gre Grande, Tu­na­puna and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro (all four-way races) and San Fer­nan­do West (six-way).

Fo­cus is al­so heavy on the UNC-held Moru­ga/Table­land and the ar­eas held by the five so-called UNC dis­si­dents who ques­tioned the par­ty’s man­age­ment re­gard­ing the in­ter­nal elec­tions in 2024: out­go­ing MPs Rush­ton Paray, (Ma­yaro), Rod­ney Charles(Na­pari­ma), Dr Rai Rag­bir (Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la), Tabaquite (Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne) and Ch­agua­nas West (Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly).

Rag­bir, Ram­bal­ly and Haynes-Al­leyne have left UNC. Ram­bal­ly spoke at PNM’s ral­ly last Sat­ur­day. Haynes-Al­leyne was al­so part of PNM’s com­men­tary team.

Un­like some out­go­ing UNC MPs who have been as­sist­ing their re­place­ment can­di­dates, Paray has not been ob­served help­ing Ma­yaro can­di­date Nicholas Mor­ris.

Play­ers, is­sues in­volved

The PNM, as­pir­ing to ob­tain a “hat trick” third man­date af­ter elec­tion wins in 2015 and 2020 is led by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and PM Young.

The PNM par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cam­paign on the ba­sis of a re­vived par­ty with new lead­er­ship cross­ing tra­di­tion­al eth­nic par­ty lines.

Young be­came PM on March 17 in a new lead­er­ship tran­si­tion mod­el in­volv­ing Row­ley’s res­ig­na­tion as Prime Min­is­ter on March 16. Row­ley re­mains the po­lit­i­cal leader un­til PNM’s con­ven­tion in Sep­tem­ber.

Young’s first act on March 18 was to call the elec­tion date—four months be­fore the end of the cur­rent term in Au­gust.

The UNC led by Per­sad-Bisses­sar is seek­ing a re­turn to gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship vic­to­ry of 2010, and sub­se­quent­ly hold­ing Op­po­si­tion sta­tus since the 2015 and 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions.

The UNC, which is not con­test­ing in To­ba­go, al­so tar­get­ed the ex­pan­sion of its base fight­ing this elec­tion with a coali­tion of in­ter­ests in­volv­ing cer­tain trade unions and small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

The 2025 poll will be the first gen­er­al elec­tion at­tempt for some par­ties in­clud­ing the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance led by Gary Grif­fith, as well as for the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front led by Mick­ela Pan­day, and the All Peo­ple’s Par­ty led by Kezel Jack­son.

Elec­tion day ma­chine, turnout key

Af­ter a short sharp cam­paign where ac­cu­sa­tions, al­le­ga­tions and af­fronts have been hurled among can­di­dates’ out­reach state­ments, to­day’s elec­tion comes down to the par­ties’ re­spec­tive ma­chin­ery.

An­a­lysts have said the fo­cus will al­so be on vot­er turnout fol­low­ing the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions which was at 58.08 per cent.

In 2020 the PNM won 22 seats with 49.05 per cent of the votes, los­ing Moru­ga/Table­land. The UNC won 19 seats with 47.14 per cent.

The swing vote was es­ti­mat­ed at 2.63 per cent.

High­er se­cu­ri­ty at

par­ties HQs tonight

To­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion is T&T’s 15th since In­de­pen­dence and its 23rd na­tion­al elec­tion.

Yes­ter­day po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath chair­man of the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour said the cam­paign was gen­er­al­ly peace­ful.

“There were one or two in­ci­dents of phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion as well as de­fac­ing of posters and sim­i­lar para­pher­na­lia in cer­tain pub­lic space, but gen­er­al­ly T&T has main­tained its long­stand­ing record for peace­ful gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paigns.”

Se­cu­ri­ty has been high through­out the cam­paign with TT De­fence Force sol­diers sup­port­ing po­lice of­fi­cers and joint ef­forts con­tin­ue amid polling.

Last week the TTPS stat­ed au­thor­i­ties will be pay­ing ex­tra at­ten­tion to the head­quar­ters of all po­lit­i­cal par­ties at this evening’s close of poll “as emo­tions are ex­pect­ed to run high as the re­sults are tal­lied and an­nounced.”

The TTPS has asked par­ties to en­sure that per­sons who are part of their con­tin­gent, stay with­in giv­en guide­lines.

Elec­tion of­fences in­clude the sale of al­co­hol be­tween 6 am and 6 pm to­day; no con­gre­gat­ing with­in 100 me­tres of a polling sta­tion; pro­hi­bi­tion of loud­speak­ers or mu­sic trucks dur­ing polling hours; re­frain­ing from ex­ert­ing any in­flu­ence on vot­ers to sup­port a par­tic­u­lar par­ty; avoid­ing il­le­gal vot­ing prac­tices; and not im­per­son­at­ing any elec­toral of­fi­cial.

Last week, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin said au­thor­i­ties had re­ceived cer­tain in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ing a pos­si­ble dis­rup­tion was be­ing planned. Ben­jamin had warned that the TTPPS is tak­ing a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to deal­ing with any­one who had any in­ten­tion to dis­rupt the elec­toral process.

To­day’s elec­tion is be­ing mon­i­tored by a Cari­com Elec­tion Ob­serv­er mis­sion and Com­mon­wealth Ob­serv­er group.