Al­most in tan­dem with the an­nounce­ment of an elec­tion date, in­tense dis­cus­sions have been tak­ing place around bul­ly­ing.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, not all the di­a­logue has been healthy or con­struc­tive and in these ear­ly days of the cam­paign, the is­sue has stirred up strong emo­tions.

An in­ci­dent that oc­curred three decades ago, when Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young was a stu­dent at St Mary’s Col­lege, has brought the is­sue of bul­ly­ing front and cen­tre.

Mr Young has ac­knowl­edged that the in­ci­dent was trau­mat­ic for all in­volved and apol­o­gised to all vic­tims of bul­ly­ing. He al­so said what he want­ed “all of Trinidad and To­ba­go to do now, in­clud­ing col­leagues, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Cab­i­net, mem­bers of all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, is let’s be a lit­tle bit more sen­si­tive.”

The in­ci­dent has resur­faced at a par­tic­u­lar­ly del­i­cate time for Young, co­in­cid­ing ex­act­ly with his prime min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment and in the ear­ly days of an elec­tion cam­paign where the fo­cus is on his abil­i­ty to lead. It isn’t like­ly to fade from the spot­light any­time soon.

Bul­ly­ing is a ma­jor prob­lem in T&T and the resur­fac­ing of the is­sue in­volv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Young is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to look for ways to erad­i­cate such de­struc­tive be­hav­iours from our so­ci­ety.

Bul­ly­ing is de­lib­er­ate, cal­cu­lat­ed ac­tions that cause pain through phys­i­cal harm, hurt­ful words or be­hav­iour and it reg­u­lar­ly oc­curs in po­lit­i­cal set­tings, where it is passed off as pi­cong and cam­paign rhetoric.

In re­al­i­ty, it is a symp­tom that some­thing is awry in this coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal cul­ture. Harm­ful and un­ac­cept­able things are said and done that in­flict re­al harm — emo­tion­al, rep­u­ta­tion­al and oth­er­wise — to groups and in­di­vid­u­als.

Now that the is­sue is high on the gen­er­al elec­tion agen­da, po­lit­i­cal lead­ers and can­di­dates need to sig­nal to their sup­port­ers that bul­ly­ing be­hav­iour on the cam­paign trail will not be tol­er­at­ed.

Fail­ure to adopt a strong an­ti-bul­ly­ing stance will send the mes­sage that such be­hav­iours are so­cial­ly ac­cept­able.

Po­lit­i­cal bul­ly­ing in all its ug­ly man­i­fes­ta­tions — rep­u­ta­tion-bash­ing, ru­mour-mon­ger­ing and even mak­ing veiled threats — is not free ex­pres­sion. How­ev­er, it has been re­plac­ing the hon­est, re­spect­ful dis­cus­sions of na­tion­al is­sues that should be the main vote-get­ting strate­gies of the par­ties that want to win con­trol of White­hall.

Too of­ten these days, cam­paign­ing de­gen­er­ates in­to in­tim­i­da­tion and im­pugn­ing the char­ac­ter or mo­tive of po­lit­i­cal ri­vals, of­ten with the tac­it ap­proval of can­di­dates.

The worst of the po­lit­i­cal bul­ly­ing is tak­ing place on so­cial me­dia, where fre­quent at­tacks on char­ac­ter and re­peat­ing hearsay is now the norm. Even the slight­est re­sponse from the tar­gets of these on­line at­tacks can elic­it more bru­tal ver­bal as­saults.

T&T is so po­lit­i­cal­ly po­larised that it doesn’t take much to stir up an­i­mos­i­ty, and the spread­ing of dis­tort­ed and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry per­cep­tions.

Ear­ly on in the Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign of 2025, the widen­ing rifts are ev­i­dent. To coun­ter­act these de­struc­tive trends, par­ty sup­port­ers should be en­cour­aged to re­spect each oth­er’s po­lit­i­cal views.

The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour, which mon­i­tors po­lit­i­cal con­duct dur­ing elec­tions, can play a crit­i­cal role in dis­cour­ag­ing bul­ly­ing be­hav­iour through­out the elec­tion race.

Even the par­ties that no longer sub­scribe to the coun­cil should ap­pre­ci­ate the im­por­tance of the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct in main­tain­ing the stan­dards of in­tegri­ty, eth­i­cal cam­paign­ing, and re­spon­si­ble pub­lic dis­course that can pre­vent bul­ly­ing.