There will be a fi­nal push by the “Red”, “Yel­low” and oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties to­day.

And the UNC en­ters the home stretch of elec­tion prepa­ra­tions, with the view that the tide of pub­lic sen­ti­ment has shift­ed in its favour for Mon­day’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions

How­ev­er, the PNM is qui­et­ly con­fi­dent that its ef­forts on Mon­day will break the 7-7 re­sult of the 2019 LGE.

Prepa­ra­tions were be­ing com­plet­ed yes­ter­day in the East and South for to­day’s fi­nal ral­lies by the PNM and UNC ac­com­mo­da­tion, as all par­ties fi­nalised arrange­ments for Mon­day’s LG elec­tion

The PNM’s fi­nal ral­ly be­fore Mon­day’s elec­tion is at Con­stan­tine Park, Ma­coya—a tra­di­tion­al ral­ly lo­ca­tion for the par­ty. Gates for the “Big Red Ral­ly” open at 11 am, with ac­tiv­i­ties from 1 pm.

PNM leader Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­er par­ty of­fi­cials will ad­dress the pub­lic.

Con­tin­gents are ex­pect­ed from all con­stituen­cies, with mem­bers from the key San Fer­nan­do bat­tle­ground area ex­pect­ed in a large team.

Yes­ter­day, PNM San Fer­nan­do of­fi­cials, who said they had been “putting in the work in their ar­eas,” point­ed out that red PNM flags and ban­ners of Mon Re­pos Navet can­di­date Nigel Coutiere - had been erect­ed at HDC build­ings at Mon Re­pos. They said it was where a num­ber of UNC flags and the ban­ner of UNC’s can­di­date Za­hir Khan was re­cent­ly post­ed.

Oth­er PNM San Fer­nan­do front­lin­ers vowed, “We’ll hold San Fer­nan­do.”

PNM PRO Faris Al-Rawi didn’t an­swer calls yes­ter­day on the par­ty’s sta­tus, what its track­ing polls have iden­ti­fied—or the par­ty’s chances in the two seats with for­mer UNC coun­cil­lors con­test­ing for the PNM, when de­fec­tor can­di­dates are of­ten re­ject­ed by their for­mer sup­port­ers.

Oth­er se­nior PNM of­fi­cials said, “We’re aim­ing to win. We’ve done our stud­ies and our ‘home­work’. We un­der­stand how some view the Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance on cer­tain ar­eas , in­clud­ing where se­cu­ri­ty is in­volved, but we’re mak­ing our best ef­forts.”

The PNM is seek­ing to re­tain con­trol of its strong­holds in the East-West cor­ri­dor and in South, Point Fortin and par­tic­u­lar­ly the San Fer­nan­do bat­tle­ground.

The PNM’s al­so tar­get­ing UNC-con­trolled San­gre Grande, the new Ma­yaro South-Guayagua­yare area, the new Cou­va West-Roys­to­nia seat and pos­si­bly make in­roads in Cen­tral.

We’re con­fi­dent—UNC

The UNC’s prepa­ra­tions were be­ing com­plet­ed for this af­ter­noon’s “Code Yel­low” ral­ly at the South­ern Sup­plies Ltd carpark in San Fer­nan­do

Speak­ers in­clude UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith and UNC deputy lead­ers.

The UNC tar­gets the San Fer­nan­do cor­po­ra­tion, re­tain­ing San­gre Grande and win­ning the two new seats in Cou­va and Ma­yaro.

UNC al­so aims to make in­roads in PNM-con­trolled Ari­ma and Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and re­tain its strong­holds in South and Cen­tral.

It’s NTA part­ner tar­gets PNM-con­trolled PoS and Diego Mar­tin cor­po­ra­tions, as well as ar­eas in Ari­ma and Point Fortin

UNC strate­gists said, “We’ve con­firmed our sup­port and we are in a good place in San­gre Grande and San Fer­nan­do, as well as Ari­ma and Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co. Over­all, we feel the tide has shift­ed in our favour—the peo­ple are with us.

“We’re go­ing to con­tin­ue pro­tect­ing Pe­nal/Debe as our fortress and main­tain our po­si­tion of strength in Princes Town, Ma­yaro, Siparia, Cou­va and Ch­agua­nas.”

UNC lead­er­ship of­fi­cials added, “We’re work­ing hard. We’re on the ground. If the Guardian and the coun­try lis­tens to our state­ments at our ral­ly, you’ll see our po­si­tion. UNC is on full alert. The code is Yel­low and you’ll see where we stand.”

On­ly UNC, NTA & PNM win­ning seats— Grif­fith

NTA leader Grif­fith said it was un­for­tu­nate that this might be the first na­tion­al elec­tion in which no sci­en­tif­ic poll was done be­yond so­cial me­dia polls which he said would be bi­ased. He said there was even one which had NTA with 60 per cent, which he knew was­nt’ true.

He said no-one would un­der­stand and all par­ties would be op­ti­mistic, in­clud­ing those who had “not a snow­ball’s chance in hell and would lose their de­posits.

He said every sin­gle of the 141 LG seats would be won by ei­ther the PNM, or the UNC, or the NTA.

“How many? It re­mains to be seen, I’d like to be­lieve with the NTA’s in­put work­ing with the UNC, we’d see re­sults sim­i­lar to 2010, where cer­tain seats - in this case, cor­po­ra­tions, shift­ed from the PNM to the UNC and their part­ner,” he added.

A Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots spokesman said PDP hopes to win eight PoS seats and two in Barataria and El So­cor­ro/Aranguez North, while it hopes to make in­roads in the sev­en oth­er ar­eas its con­test­ing in East and South. “We know we’ve gained ground in Port-of-Spain since PNM’s Stu­art Young showed up at Char­ford Court to­day but ran when PDP leader Wat­son Duke came with the mi­cro­phone,” he added.

The Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty is seek­ing in­roads in East West cor­ri­dor seats, Princes Town and oth­er places.

Spe­cial vot­ing, which be­gan Mon­day for 13,284 spe­cial vot­ers, ends at 3 pm to­mor­row. Mon­day’s vot­ing be­gins at 6 am and ends at 6 pm.

Make or Break Spot­light seats:

Both PNM and UNC have a mix­ture of in­cum­bents and “New­bies”.

* UNC’s Cou­va West Roys­to­nia can­di­date Vanes­sa Kus­si - wife of div­er Rishi Nages­sar, who died in the Paria pipeline tragedy - is con­test­ing against PNM’s Lynise Bur­nette-Pack­ett.

* Ex-UNC coun­cil­lor Mar­cus Gird­harie’s con­test­ing Mara­bel­la South/Vista Bel­la for PNM against UNC op­po­nent Sasha Ali.

* Ex-UNC coun­cil­lor Shel­don “Fish” Gar­cia con­test­ing Ari­ma Cen­tral for PNM against UNC’s Nigel Moses.

* Ex-UNC mem­ber Safraz Ali con­test­ing El So­cor­ro/Aranguez North for PDP against UNC and PNM can­di­dates.

* UNC’s Ari­ma West-O’Meara can­di­date Ryan Di­az against PNM’s Dave Maraj.

* NTA’s Rus­sel Chan against PNM’s Mar­cia Marselin in Pe­tit Val­ley/Co­corite.

* UNC’s Kam­la Pha­goo against PNM’s Ali­cia Ali for the Kel­ly Vil­lage/War­renville seat held by ex-UNC coun­cil­lor Samuel Sankar, who left UNC for PNM.

* UNC’s Shane Sam­lal seek­ing the his­tor­i­cal­ly mar­gin­al Co­coyea-Tarou­ba seat from PNM’s Tere­sa Lynch, who won it by 30 votes in the 2019 LG elec­tion and whose fa­ther was a coun­cil­lor there.

* UNC’s John Al­i­bo­cas seek­ing Mara­bel­la West from PNM’s Jameela Mar­ryshaw, whose moth­er served there.

*PNM’s Jil­lon Lewis in Brighton Ves­signy against UNC’s Kedisha Castil­lo.

* In­de­pen­dent Kendell Ha­gley con­test­ing against PNM and UNC can­di­dates in the new Ma­yaro South-Guayagua­yare seat.

* PEP, PNM and UNC can­di­date con­test­ing the Ma­yaro North seat

* In­de­pen­dent, PNM, PEP, NTA and MSJ can­di­dates in Hol­ly­wood, Point Fortin.

*PDP, UNC, PNM and PEP can­di­dates for Ben Lomond/Hard­bar­gain/Williamsville.

*New Na­tion­al Vi­sion (NNV) founder Fuad Abu Bakr, who’s the PDP Bel­mont North and West can­di­date against PNM and UNC can­di­dates.