Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Big num­bers on both sides, hot sun match­ing the po­lit­i­cal tem­po de­gree for de­gree–and some sur­pris­es for good mea­sure.

That was the pic­ture yes­ter­day at the fi­nal po­lit­i­cal ral­lies of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) at Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah, Tacarigua, and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) at Aranguez Sa­van­nah, as the last stages of the bat­tle for votes un­fold­ed be­fore to­mor­row’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

It’s been a long haul of a cam­paign, of­ten bit­ter be­tween these two main play­ers, now com­ing down to a fin­ish that still seems “this close”—but both are op­ti­mistic.

UNC ex­pect­ing vic­to­ry. PNM giv­ing no quar­ter. And yes­ter­day’s ral­lies showed sup­port­ers of each in a dogged po­si­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers, fo­cused on pro­ject­ing con­fi­dence and sta­bil­i­ty, promis­ing eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion and as­sur­ing there would be no de­val­u­a­tion of the TT dol­lar. In his mes­sage, Young po­si­tioned his par­ty as the safer, more se­cure choice for the fu­ture.

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion and UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed her health amid pub­lic con­cerns, while ac­knowl­edg­ing past mis­takes and apol­o­gis­ing. She al­so re­it­er­at­ed her tough stance on crime. Her tone was a mix of per­son­al re­as­sur­ance, aim­ing to steady sup­port head­ing in­to the polls.

Some “bat­tle” start­ed in the ear­ly af­ter­noon on the East­ern Main Road and Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (opened yes­ter­day from 10 am to 10 pm) with signs of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance’s blue and white mo­tor­cade from east to west and UNC “con­voys” along the way.

At 1 pm, the sun-bak­ing Aranguez Sa­van­nah had forced ear­ly UNC ar­rivals to shad­ed ar­eas to the right, near the south­ern end where the Ris­ing Sun’s plat­form was set up.

More signs that UNC mem­bers had hit the road ear­ly arose with Cou­va South can­di­date Bar­ry Padarath’s mu­sic trail­er truck “con­voy” swing­ing in­to Champs Fleurs and oth­er UNC sup­port­ers from south Trinidad com­ing through St Au­gus­tine and Cane Farm. Up to then: lit­tle sign of PNM red along the PBR.

UNC’s pres­ence was high­ly ev­i­dent near Bam­boo Set­tle­ment, plas­tered with big posters of Aranguez/St Joseph can­di­date De­vesh Ma­haraj—and one PNM flag. Near­ing the PNM’s venue at Ed­die Hart grounds, how­ev­er, the par­ty’s big stage struc­ture and red-draped bor­der loomed. Ear­ly ar­rivals for the 3 pm start sat around the park’s bor­der.

The stage was set at the north­ern end of the park, clos­er to the PBR. White tents bor­der­ing the perime­ter at­tract­ed sup­port­ers who had been fil­ter­ing in, stick­ing to the shade and leav­ing the sun-beat­en field clear in the ear­ly af­ter­noon.

Prime PNM sup­port was in swing. Old, young, lit­tle ones. A woman on crutch­es dam­aged her foot. A dis­abled man on braces push­ing on dogged­ly. War­rior queens tot­ing huge PNM flags over shoul­ders–one us­ing hers as a walk­ing stick–oth­ers with co­coyea brooms. PNM men fly­ing their flag.

Just af­ter the 3 pm start time, hosts urged mem­bers, “Come For­ward! Come For­ward!” Brave souls who de­fied the broil­ing sun to get clos­er to the stage ac­cept­ed the chal­lenge. But as the af­ter­noon wore on, mu­sic and par­ty spir­it got the bet­ter of the rest of the field, clus­ter­ing thick­ly near the stage ar­eas.

PNM deputy leader Ro­han Sinanan toed the par­ty line on po­si­tion, pre-poll: “We’re red, ready and re­spon­si­ble ... our par­ty is very con­fi­dent we will re­tain gov­er­nance in T&T and emerge vic­to­ri­ous yet again.”

The grounds lat­er be­came full of ‘red’ en­er­gy af­ter con­voys be­gan stream­ing in, ve­hi­cles with sup­port­ers fly­ing the bal­isi­er out of cars, vans, SU­Vs, and mu­sic trucks.

And there was more to come—not the least of which was ex-UNC MPs Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne join­ing their ex-UNC col­league Lar­ry Lal­la in PN­Mship. Ram­bal­ly, on fire on PNM’s plat­form, Haynes-Al­leyne do­ing com­men­tary along­side PNM’s Amery Browne.

Word on their PNM de­but, how­ev­er, did not make a dent in UNC’s Aranguez gath­er­ing, where the par­ty’s sig­na­ture yel­low gave a huge glow-up to the bright evening.

The traf­fic jam head­ing west to Aranguez start­ed from Champs Fleurs, miles away. Sup­port­ers in yel­low and blue UNC jer­seys trot­ted be­tween streets to the venue, where traf­fic was jammed with maxi taxis and oth­er ve­hi­cles seek­ing to get as close as pos­si­ble to dis­charge sup­port­ers.

At the sa­van­nah, sup­port­ers staked out shady places around the perime­ter near the PBR, leav­ing the sun-beat­en cen­tre of the field large­ly to the rays. Peo­ple were seat­ed on a medi­um-sized pavil­ion area to the left. But—like PNM’s venue when pro­ceed­ings were in full swing—the crowd clus­tered thick­ly near the stage, which was lo­cat­ed at the south­ern end of the sa­van­nah.

Like PNM’s gath­er­ing: el­der­ly, youths, chil­dren, strong grass­roots com­po­nent—but with Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) and Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) sup­port­ers and some Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion green jer­seys. The ma­jor­i­ty fly­ing the UNC yel­low, spir­its high in an­tic­i­pa­tion of vic­to­ry.

The vibe “UNC Vic­to­ri­ous” was telegraphed, in­clud­ing via Gen­er­al Grant’s guest spot alert­ing the crowd on Shot Call.

On a stage-side plat­form, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan sur­veyed the crowd size. UNC Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Vil­liana Ra­moutars­ingh walked the area, hap­py at the turnout. Out­go­ing Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh, among the crowd with UNC Chief Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer Tim Gopeesingh, said, “I can’t say how many seats, but I know it will be a UNC vic­to­ry for sure.”

PEP Port-of-Spain North can­di­date Phillip Alexan­der de­clared from the plat­form, “Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar tak­ing all 39 seats Mon­day!”

Who­ev­er was dis­cour­aged by the hot sun would have emerged lat­er, fin­ish­ing off ral­ly day with even big­ger num­bers as they lis­tened to re­spec­tive lead­ers—Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Op­po­si­tion and UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar—in what would have been a fi­nal de­c­la­ra­tion of this term for one.

The next step: turn­ing yes­ter­day’s big mo­bil­i­sa­tion in­to Mon­day’s votes.