PRO­FES­SOR HAMID GHANY

Res­i­dent Po­lit­i­cal Sci­en­tist

hamid.ghany@sta.uwi.edu

The res­ur­rec­tion of the UNC in last week’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion is a tes­ta­ment to the suc­cess­ful en­gage­ment of the ground base by the par­ty through its NA­TEX elec­tions last June. This move not on­ly rein­vig­o­rat­ed the par­ty’s base but al­so helped over­come an in­sur­gency in­side the par­ty de­signed to top­ple the lead­er­ship.

On the oth­er hand, the PNM’s de­ci­sion to by­pass in­ter­nal elec­tions—miss­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­er­gise its sup­port­ers—led to a top-down im­po­si­tion of a new prime min­is­ter, while Dr Kei­th Row­ley held on­to his po­si­tion as po­lit­i­cal leader. The PNM’s two-leader strat­e­gy was met with strong dis­ap­proval from its base, re­veal­ing cracks in the par­ty’s uni­ty ahead of the Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Go­ing in­side the num­bers, there was an over­all small­er turnout this time when com­pared to the COVID elec­tion of 2020. On­ly 53.92 per cent turned out to vote in 2025 as op­posed to 58.08 per cent that turned out in 2020.

It was ap­par­ent that the PNM lost votes when com­pared to their 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion per­for­mance by drop­ping from 322,180 in 2020 to 224,414 in 2025. On the oth­er hand, the UNC that con­test­ed 39 con­stituen­cies in 2020 for 309,654 votes in­creased their share by con­test­ing few­er seats (34 down from 39) and rose to 335,165.

This was a re­mark­able feat for a par­ty whose leader had been dis­missed and whose im­age suf­fered from sto­ries in the me­dia of mass res­ig­na­tions.

In re­al­i­ty, there was move­ment on both sides, with crossover sup­port flow­ing in both di­rec­tions.

How did this turn­around un­fold? The UNC cre­at­ed a coali­tion of in­ter­ests by em­brac­ing oth­er po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the labour move­ment. They cast the elec­tion as the work­ing class ver­sus the priv­i­leged class.

The PNM at­tempt­ed to high­light Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s hu­man frail­ties, but she turned it around with grace, open­ly ac­knowl­edg­ing her health chal­lenges while af­firm­ing that her mind re­mained sharp and her heart full of love. It was a pow­er­ful mes­sage that res­onat­ed with many.

In con­trast, the PNM’s ap­proach—mock­ing a woman’s health—came across as in­sen­si­tive and harsh. Neg­a­tive cam­paign­ing of­ten sig­nals a sense of in­ter­nal des­per­a­tion, and in this case, it may have done more harm than good.

The poll that I con­duct­ed for Guardian Me­dia Ltd was vil­i­fied for the method­ol­o­gy and the for­mu­la used to iden­ti­fy where to send the da­ta-gath­er­ers. The snap­shot of pub­lic opin­ion in the 11 most mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies (six of which were held by the UNC and five of which were held by the PNM) re­vealed a 15 per cent lead for the UNC over the PNM (45 to 30 per cent).

There was dis­be­lief that such a wide lead could be re­al.

In the end, the UNC won all 11 of those con­stituen­cies by wide mar­gins, con­firm­ing the snap­shot that was tak­en two weeks be­fore elec­tion day in Aranguez/St Joseph, Barataria/San Juan, Ch­agua­nas East, Clax­ton Bay, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Ma­yaro, Moru­ga/Table­land, San Fer­nan­do West, To­co/San­gre Grande, and Tu­na­puna.

That cu­mu­la­tive 15 per cent lead for the UNC held un­til elec­tion day in the face of al­le­ga­tions of mis­in­for­ma­tion.

CON­STITUEN­CY 2020 2025

1. Aranguez-St. Joseph UNC – 8,539 UNC – 9,908

PNM – 9,362 PNM – 6,672

2. Barataria-San Juan UNC – 8,300 UNC – 8,887

PNM – 7,240 PNM – 4,742

3. Ch­agua­nas East UNC – 8,968 UNC – 10,097

PNM – 7,882 PNM - 5,317

4. Clax­ton Bay UNC – 8,869 UNC – 9,969

PNM – 7,357 PNM – 4,934

5. Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la UNC – 10,901 UNC – 12,559

PNM – 7,557 PNM - 5,393

6. La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro UNC – 7,793 UNC – 9,585

PNM – 9,714 PNM – 6,712

7. Ma­yaro UNC – 10,593 UNC – 11,241

PNM - 7,229 PNM – 4,381

8. Moru­ga/Table­land UNC – 10,534 UNC - 11,083

PNM – 9,462 PNM – 7,983

9. San Fer­nan­do West UNC – 6,754 UNC – 7,341

PNM – 8,459 PNM – 6,638

10. To­co-San­gre Grande UNC – 7,303 UNC – 9,728

PNM – 10,694 PNM – 7,363

11. Tu­na­puna UNC – 7,533 UNC – 8,466

PNM - 9,460 PNM – 6,943

These re­sults show the trend that was cap­tured by the polling da­ta. The fi­nal out­comes con­firmed the shift was ev­i­dent not on­ly in these mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies but across the broad­er elec­toral land­scape wher­ev­er the UNC con­test­ed.