The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­ior was formed in 2014 and aimed to main­tain a Code of Ethics in pol­i­tics which would main­tain the high­est moral prin­ci­ples but for the 2025 elec­tion, the UNC says it wants no part in it. 

UNC Chair­man Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo wrote a two-line let­ter to Chair­man of the coun­cil Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath say­ing, "1. The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) here­by with­draws from the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour. 2. The UNC re­mains com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion and the Laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

No of­fi­cial rea­son was giv­en for the with­draw­al. When con­tact­ed Dr. Ra­goonath con­firmed re­ceipt of the let­ter and said he was giv­en no rea­son for the with­draw­al. 

In­ter­est­ing­ly, most com­plaints made to the Coun­cil were made by the UNC against the PNM. 

It has not made any state­ments on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape since the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion of Au­gust 2023. 

In fact, Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley had at­tacked the Coun­cil in a Face­book post in Ju­ly 2023 call­ing the Coun­cil,  “An eth­i­cal coun­cil with­out ethics and steeped in bias is to be ig­nored for what it is.”

Dr Ra­goonath said at the time in re­sponse, “He could dis­miss it now say­ing the coun­cil is un­eth­i­cal and steeped in bias, that is his po­si­tion. Had we said some­thing about the UNC or the NTA we prob­a­bly would have got­ten ku­dos for it.”

The PNM has more record­ed in­frac­tions than any oth­er par­ty. 

The Coun­cil was nev­er a le­gal au­thor­i­ty nor were its rul­ings bind­ing. It was mere­ly a show of good faith by po­lit­i­cal par­ties to run rel­a­tive­ly clean cam­paigns dur­ing the elec­tion. 

Even though the elec­tion is due this year, the Coun­cil will not of­fi­cial­ly start mon­i­tor­ing un­til three months pri­or to the elec­tion. If an elec­tion date is not an­nounced by the end of April, the Coun­cil will start mon­i­tor­ing in May.