Gail Alexan­der

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, 22, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, 19 - but the UNC’s not con­ced­ing

It’s now over to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) to un­der­take a re­count which the UNC has de­mand­ed in at least three mar­gin­al seats.

That’s the pre­lim­i­nary out­come of yes­ter­day’s his­toric “Pan­dem­ic Poll” in which the PNM won 22 seats.

While the UNC lost, it gained Moru­ga among its 19 seats and has sought to call the “shot” on the of­fi­cial end of the elec­tion with its re­count bid.

An elat­ed PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley claimed vic­to­ry with PNM’s 22 seats around 10.31 pm, say­ing, “Tonight, against all odds in a most dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion, the PNM has once again gone in­to Gov­ern­ment. It has not been an easy task and easy way but the PNM has stayed the course and we’ve been called to pro­vide the peo­ple with good gov­er­nance ... we went in­to the elec­tion with 23 seats and came out with 22.

“Giv­en the ob­sta­cles and cours­es we had to trav­el, I say this re­sult con­firms my faith in the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I al­ways said the peo­ple can be trust­ed to do the right thing when called up­on to do. And tonight we did so with these re­sults. I’ll re­turn to the of­fice in White­hall as the Prime Min­is­ter of T&T.”

Row­ley called for all in T&T to put aside the cam­paign’s bag­gage, spoke about a dif­fi­cult two years ahead and promised bet­ter “weath­er ahead” and to keep com­mit­ments made dur­ing the cam­paign. He added this could eas­i­ly be his last term in pol­i­tics.

But short­ly af­ter Row­ley spoke, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was not con­ced­ing. She said the UNC will be fil­ing for re­counts in at least three mar­gin­al seats as the num­bers were “so close.”

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar embrace her supporters after the results of the general elections at her Siparia Constituency Office, SS Erin Road, Penal.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

“On­ly when (re­counts are con­clud­ed) can we con­cede or claim vic­to­ry. I’m a bit sur­prised at the re­sults but it’s not over un­til the re­counts are done. We fought a good fight and did well. We could have done bet­ter – but it’s not over til it’s over,’’ Per­sad-Bisses­sar told sup­port­ers.

There­fore, T&T’s his­toric “Pan­dem­ic Poll” seems set to make more his­to­ry with the UNC’s re­count. That may de­lay an of­fi­cial re­sult briefly.

Yes­ter­day’s elec­tion - T&T’s 18th - was an his­toric event, oc­cur­ring amid a sec­ond COVID-19 wave.

De­spite, the COVID con­straints, vot­er turnout was heavy from amid the 1,134,136-strong elec­torate. It was per­ceived to be par­tic­u­lar­ly heavy in some seats, in­clud­ing mar­gin­als.

The EBC, which didn’t give turnout es­ti­mates last night, will give a pre­lim­i­nary fig­ure lat­er. The turnout in the 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion was 67.2 per cent

The PNM, which held of­fice for the last five years with 23 seats, had tar­get­ted 23 to 25 seats. The UNC aimed to in­crease its 18 seats of the last term to 25. Nei­ther achieved tar­get.

UNC’s re­count call may not be the on­ly such post-elec­tion ac­tion. The PNM re­cent­ly took is­sue with the nom­i­na­tion of UNC’s Princes Town can­di­date Bar­ry Padarath and sig­nalled an in­tent to chal­lenge it. Padarath won his seat last night. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day the par­ty is ready for any le­gal chal­lenge.

UNC lead­er­ship in ques­tion now

De­spite Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­count call, re­sults have now raised the ques­tion of her par­ty’s lead­er­ship af­ter she’s lost yet an­oth­er poll. Some UNC in­sid­ers said the par­ty won Moru­ga, show­ing it picked up ground - but on­ly just. To­wards the end of the cam­paign, for­mer UNC MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan had “anoint­ed” Roodal Mooni­lal to be a fu­ture leader and prime min­is­ter.

The pub­lic’s pro­nounce­ment in yes­ter­day’s vot­ing fo­cused on 150 can­di­dates from 19 par­ties and five in­de­pen­dents. The small­er par­ties did not win any seats.

Can­di­dates had to win one-eighth of the to­tal votes cast to get back their $5,000 de­posit.

In the 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, with a less­er elec­torate fig­ure and a turnout of 67.27 per cent, the PNM had won 378,447 of the to­tal 734, 792 votes cast. The UNC had ob­tained 290, 066 votes, in­clud­ing a Con­gress of the Peo­ple seat in St Au­gus­tine.

The short - sharp - cam­paign was high­light­ed by a high-spend cam­paign among the two ma­jor par­ties with an em­pha­sis on mass/so­cial me­dia out­reach. The 2015 cam­paign in­volved spend­ing of over $300 mil­lion.

Supporters of the UNC embrace each other after learning the results of the General Election at the Siparia Constituency Office, SS Erin Road, Penal.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Bal­isi­er House fetes

First re­sults be­gan com­ing in from 7.09 pm yes­ter­day. The over­all trend was es­tab­lished by 9.45 pm and the out­come was clear by 10.20 pm.

PNM held on to its “safe seats” but pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures showed PNM’S Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters los­ing to UNC’s Michelle Ben­jamin. Row­ley held his Diego Mar­tin West seat com­fort­ably.

PNM’s Ayan­na’s Web­ster-Roy held To­ba­go East against PDP leader Wat­son Duke, who lost (but im­proved his sup­port over his 2015 fig­ure).

PNM’s Faris Al-Rawi re­tained San Fer­nan­do West against UNC’s Sean Sobers.

And PNM’s Mar­vin Gon­za­les held Lopinot/Bon Air West for the par­ty against ILP leader Jack Warn­er and UNC’s Prakash Williams.

PNM of­fi­cials mon­i­tored elec­tion re­sults from Bal­isi­er House. But due to the COVID pan­dem­ic, the par­ty had asked mem­bers not to con­gre­gate there.

At 9 pm, the mood of those at Bal­isi­er House was op­ti­mistic though PNM of­fi­cials had been guard­ed in as­sess­ment ear­li­er in the evening. Af­ter Row­ley de­clared vic­to­ry, loud mu­sic blast­ed for a short pe­ri­od and ve­hi­cles toot­ed horns. PN­Mites cel­e­brat­ed in var­i­ous con­stituen­cies.

The UNC main­tained its safe seats, adding Moru­ga to its con­stituen­cies and hold­ing off PNM in Ch­agua­nas East and San Juan/Barataria.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, by 8.33 pm de­clared vic­to­ry in win­ning her Siparia con­stituen­cy with over 13,000 votes. She had to in­struct sup­port­ers to ob­serve so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols.

At UNC’s San Juan of­fice, sup­port­ers cel­e­brat­ed from 9 pm, al­so mi­nus with­out so­cial dis­tanc­ing and po­lice had to call for them to do so.

If re­sults re­main the same, the PNM will bring 10 new faces in­to Par­lia­ment along with its 12 in­cum­bents.

The UNC will have 11 new faces apart from its eight in­cum­bents.

Yes­ter­day’s elec­tion in­volved bound­ary changes in 12 of the 41 con­stituen­cies: shift of polling sta­tions from Cou­va North to Cou­va South. To­co/San­gre Grande in­to Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Laven­tille West in­to Laven­tille East, Port-of-Spain South, Port-of-Spain North and Laven­tille West. Two sta­tions were al­so shift­ed from San Fer­nan­do East to San Fer­nan­do West and from Oropouche East to Oropouche West.

PNM MPs

Dr Kei­th Row­ley (Diego Mar­tin West)

Colm Im­bert (Diego Mar­tin North East)

Symon de No­bre­ga (Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral)

Pen­ny Beck­les (Ari­ma)

Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (Arou­ca/Mal­oney)

Ter­rence Deyals­ingh (St Joseph)

Mar­vin Gon­za­les (Lopinot/Bon Air West)

Bri­an Man­ning (San Fer­nan­do East)

Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian (D’Abadie O’Meara)

Faris Al-Rawi (San Fer­nan­do West)

Fos­ter Cum­mings (La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro)

Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly (St Ann’s East)

Fitzger­ald Hinds (Laven­tille West)

Adri­an Leonce (Laven­tille East/Mor­vant)

Stu­art Young (Port-of-Spain North)

Kei­th Scot­land (Port-of-Spain South)

Steven Mc Clashie (La Brea)

Roger Mon­roe (To­co/San­gre Grande)

Es­mond Forde (Tu­na­puna)

To­ba­go West (Sham­fa Cud­joe)

To­ba­go East (Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy)

Kennedy Richards (Point Fortin)

UNC MPs

Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar (Siparia)

Dr Roodal Mooni­lal (Oropouche East)

De­ven­danath Tan­coo (Oropouche West)

Bar­ry Padarath (Princes Town)

Rush­ton Paray (Ma­yaro)

Rod­ney Charles (Na­pari­ma)

Lack­ram Bo­doe (Fyz­abad)

David Lee (Pointe-a-Pierre)

Ani­ta Haynes (Tabaquite)

Rudy In­dars­ingh (Cou­va South)

Rai Rag­bir (Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la )

Ravi Rati­ram (Cou­va North)

Van­dana Mo­hit (Ch­agua­nas East)

Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly (Ch­agua­nas West)

Arnold Ram (Ca­roni Cen­tral)

Rishard Seecher­an (Ca­roni East)

Sad­dam Ho­sein (San Juan Barataria)

Kadi­jah Ameen (St Au­gus­tine)

Michelle Ban­jamin (Moru­ga/Table­land)