SOYI­NI GREY

Se­nior Pro­duc­er

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath says PNM sup­port­ers de­cid­ed to pun­ish the par­ty for how it se­lect­ed Stu­art Young as Prime Min­is­ter af­ter the res­ig­na­tion of Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

He says it is the on­ly way to re­spond to the fact that the num­ber of peo­ple who vot­ed in the 2025 poll was 100,000 less, when com­pared with the lev­el of elec­torate par­tic­i­pa­tion in 2020.

“The PNM sup­port­ers felt that they had to deal with the par­ty … or pun­ish the par­ty,” the po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist ob­served, “for dis­re­spect­ing the rank-and-file mem­ber­ship in the se­lec­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter.”

Dr Ra­goonath says the par­ty will have to ask it­self why its sup­port­ers did not turn up on Mon­day, April 28.

“The base of the par­ty does not nec­es­sar­i­ly shift,” he ex­plained. “In this par­tic­u­lar case, the base did not shift. It wasn’t that they went to the UNC.”

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has con­firmed that vot­er turnout on Mon­day was 54 per­cent of el­i­gi­ble vot­ers, which is a drop from the 58 per­cent turnout in 2020.