The Op­po­si­tion UNC got 173,961 votes, the high­est num­ber in Mon­day’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion - but there was a low­er vot­er turnout of 30. 34 per cent than there was in the 2019 LG elec­tion.

And re­counts were on­go­ing yes­ter­day in 12 ar­eas which the UNC re­quest­ed and two ar­eas the PNM re­quest­ed.

The pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures on the 141 elec­toral ar­eas of the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions were re­leased by the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) yes­ter­day.

The PNM and UNC tied for con­trol of sev­en cor­po­ra­tions each, the same re­sult as the 2019 LG elec­tion.

For Mon­day’s elec­tion, the EBC stat­ed, “With an elec­torate of 1,091,935 in 141 elec­toral dis­tricts in Trinidad, there was a vot­er turnout of 30.34 per cent. The to­tal votes cast were 331,300 with 996 re­ject­ed bal­lots.”

The vot­er turnout in Mon­day’s poll is low­er than for the 2019 LG elec­tion, which was 34.49 per cent. There was an elec­torate of 1,079, 976 then. Votes cast had been 372,503. The UNC won the pop­u­lar vote then.

On Mon­day, the PNM claimed vic­to­ry in its strong­holds of Port-of-Spain, Diego Mar­tin, San Juan-Laven­tille, Point Fortin, San Fer­nan­do, Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and Ari­ma. The PNM al­so claimed in­roads with a Princes Town seat.

The UNC claimed vic­to­ry in its strong­holds of Pe­nal-Debe, Siparia, Princes Town, Ch­agua­nas Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, Ma­yaro/Rio Claro and re­took San­gre Grande with more seats there.

Yes­ter­day, the EBC re­ceived the of­fi­cial re­quests for re­counts in 14 elec­toral dis­tricts. Re­counts be­gan at 3 pm at the of­fice of the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer for the elec­toral dis­trict where the re­count was re­quest­ed.

As re­counts were un­der­way, the EBC yes­ter­day evening is­sued the pre­lim­i­nary re­sults for the elec­tion.

The EBC pro­vid­ed the al­pha-list­ing of the to­tal votes re­ceived by po­lit­i­cal par­ties:

• ↓Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice - 164

• ↓Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance - 15,997

• ↓Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment - 130,868

• ↓Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots - 1,287

• ↓Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty - 5,930

• ↓Re-unit­ed Farm­ers’ Al­liance - 1,041

• ↓The Na­tion­al Par­ty - 45

• ↓Trinidad Hu­man­i­ty Cam­paign - 234

• ↓Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress - 173,961

• ↓Uni­ty of the Peo­ple - 110

The EBC al­so stat­ed the to­tal votes re­ceived by the six In­de­pen­dent can­di­dates in the elec­tion:

• ↓Vi­vian John­son (Bel­mont South) - 128

• ↓Kath­leen Welling­ton (Blan­chisseuse/San­ta Rosa) - 55

• ↓Irvin Samuel Fe­lix (Hol­ly­wood) - 57

• ↓Kendall Ha­gley (Ma­yaro South/Guayagua­yare) - 191

• ↓Dix­ie-Ann El­liot (Pleas­antville) - 140

• ↓Gwen­dolyn Charles (Va­len­cia West) - 96

UNC re­counts in north/south; south for PNM

The UNC sought re­counts in 12 ar­eas held by the PNM - from the East west-cor­ri­dor to South Trinidad.

The PNM sought re­counts in Mara­bel­la West and Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la. The PNM’s Mara­bel­la West can­di­date, Jameela Mar­ryshaw, lost to UNC’s John Al­i­bo­cus.

Al­so, the PNM lost Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la to UNC’s Sasha Ali. Ex-UNC coun­cil­lor Mar­cus Gird­harie, who de­fect­ed to the PNM in June, con­test­ed the seat for PMM.

The re­count was sought in the fol­low­ing dis­tricts and by the fol­low­ing par­ties (and can­di­dates).

1 ↓Ari­ma North­east (UNC can­di­date Jairz­in­ho Rigs­by)

2 ↓Ari­ma West/O’Meara (UNC can­di­date Ryan Di­az)

3 ↓Au­zonville/Tu­na­puna (UNC can­di­date Meguel Latch­man)

4 ↓Bagatelle/Blue Basin (UNC can­di­date Nali­ni Goin­doo)

5 ↓Blan­chisseuse/San­ta Rosa (UNC can­di­date Cherisse Smith)

6 ↓Co­coyea/Tarou­ba (UNC can­di­date Shane Sam­lal)

7 Five Rivers (UNC can­di­date Jamie Ho­sein)

8 ↓Lengua/In­di­an Walk (UNC can­di­date Nicole Gopaul)

9 ↓Mara­bel­la West (PNM can­di­date Jameela Mar­ryshaw)

10 ↓Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la (PNM can­di­date Mar­cus Gird­harie).

11 ↓Mara­cas/San­ta Mar­gari­ta (UNC can­di­date Pe­ter Nero)

12 ↓Ma­yaro North (UNC can­di­date Kris­ten Town­sand)

13 ↓San­gre Grande North East (UNC can­di­date Dar­ren Tim­o­thy)

14 ↓San Juan East (UNC can­di­date Garth Mills)

We worked very hard and peo­ple want­ed change—UNC

Yes­ter­day, of­fi­cials of the PNM and UNC par­ties spoke on the out­come of the elec­tion.

UNC cam­paign of­fi­cials said, “Nat­u­ral­ly, we are pleased to have ob­tained the high­est num­ber of votes and we thank every­one for that - par­tic­u­lar­ly our teams who worked very very hard. The low­er vot­er turnout is some­thing which we will have to do fur­ther analy­sis on. But the re­sults show that peo­ple want change and ac­knowl­edged their un­der­stand­ing of our em­pa­thy for them.”

PNM PRO Faris Al-Rawi didn’t re­ply on PNM’s fig­ures. Oth­er PNM of­fi­cials said the par­ty would speak on the mat­ter when all re­counts are in.

NTA of­fi­cials had made it clear that Mon­day was just the be­gin­ning for the par­ty and they would be pur­su­ing ef­forts to bring oth­er en­ti­ties to­geth­er for the gen­er­al elec­tion.

In San Fer­nan­do, PNM of­fi­cials said the east­ern ar­eas of the cor­po­ra­tion had held their own well. But they said they’d ex­pect­ed that ex-UNC coun­cil­lor Mar­cus Gird­harie’s bid to keep Mara­bel­la South-Vista­bel­la for the PNM might have been un­suc­cess­ful due to the Op­po­si­tion’s method of strong con­test against their mem­bers who de­fect­ed to PMM. They al­so not­ed the fail­ure of one­time UNC Mon­trose coun­cil­lor An­dell Paramsook, who con­test­ed the seat for PNM on Mon­day.

PNM Ari­ma of­fi­cials mean­while laud­ed the win by ex-UNC coun­cil­lor Shel­don “Fish” Gar­cia in Ari­ma Cen­tral. It was among Mon­day’s first an­nounced vic­to­ries. Gar­cia de­fect­ed from the UNC in June al­so.

But they al­so said it had been de­tect­ed dur­ing the cam­paign that there were ar­eas of weak­ness, in­clud­ing Ari­ma North East and Ari­ma West O’Meara. The PNM’s Ari­ma North East past rep­re­sen­ta­tive didn’t of­fer him­self for re-elec­tion, they added. The can­di­date, Kim Gar­cia, is a first timer, they al­so not­ed.

In San­gre Grande, PNM of­fi­cials not­ed is­sues which had arisen, in­clud­ing al­leged can­vass­ing on elec­tion day for which they had to seek le­gal ad­vice. Par­ty of­fi­cials cred­it the par­ty’s win in Princes Town - which the Prime Min­is­ter was par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased about - to re­in­forced cam­paign­ing.

UNC of­fi­cials, who were hap­py about the par­ty’s ad­vances in some PNM ar­eas - in­clud­ing Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, how­ev­er, not­ed that the in­creased com­pe­ti­tion with some small­er par­ties - be­yond its NTA and MND part­ners - had af­fect­ed some votes. They were re­view­ing their bid in the Co­coyea-Tarou­ba seat, which UNC had heav­i­ly tar­get­ed, but were pleased with their in­roads in oth­er San Fer­nan­do seats. UNC of­fi­cials agreed that the pres­ence of front­lin­er Jack Warn­er and the NTA had helped en­er­gise the UNC’s cam­paign.

Mean­while, Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment leader Garvin Nicholas - whose group was part of UNC’s ac­com­mo­da­tion - says the elec­tion re­in­forced an in­evitabil­i­ty that he’d “been de­bat­ing, pon­der­ing and even re­sist­ing: that T&T is a two-par­ty state”.

He said via state­ment, “The chal­lenge, there­fore, is not to present an al­ter­na­tive op­po­si­tion to the gov­ern­ment (the hu­man and fi­nan­cial re­sources aren’t there for this), but to make the Op­po­si­tion at­trac­tive enough that peo­ple will want to vote it in­to gov­ern­ment. This bur­den falls to the elect­ed leader of the op­po­si­tion. Per­son­al­i­ty and grudge pol­i­tics have no place in a se­ri­ous democ­ra­cy. T&T’s re­li­gious, cul­tur­al, ge­o­graph­ic and so­cioe­co­nom­ic di­ver­si­ty, man­date that the op­po­si­tion must de­vel­op a bind­ing phi­los­o­phy much deep­er than the mun­dane and tran­sient, which must be no­ble enough in its in­tent that the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion could em­brace.”

He added, “The op­po­si­tion needs to evolve in­to a dy­nam­ic, for­ward think­ing, en­er­getic, trans­par­ent and as­pi­ra­tional po­lit­i­cal ma­chine in or­der to be at­trac­tive to the pop­u­la­tion. It’s on­ly when we com­mit to these ideals and set up a frame­work for sus­tain­able, ac­count­able, pros­per­ous and eq­ui­table de­vel­op­ment that peo­ple will be ex­cit­ed in­to cast­ing their bal­lot at the next gen­er­al elec­tion.”