What­ev­er in­sight in­to vot­ers’ views arose in colours worn by some mem­bers of the pub­lic yes­ter­day, to­day’s po­lit­i­cal ral­lies and mo­tor­cades will fur­ther re­veal what’s shift­ed and what’s ris­ing.

On Thurs­day, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) re­spec­tive can­nons “boomed” in San­gre Grande and Moru­ga, ahead of to­day’s as­sem­blies—PNM at Ed­die Hart grounds, Tacarigua; and UNC at Aranguez Sa­van­nah, San Juan.

Fi­nal bat­tle cries from lead­ers, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, earnest­ly shout­ing, “I will fight for you! I’ll fight for T&T! We’ll fight for you! Join us! Join us!”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, “You have had lead­ers be­fore me, you will have lead­ers af­ter me but you will nev­er ever have a leader who loves you as much as I do! When UNC wins every­body wins!”

While to­day’s shows of force as­sist in de­ter­min­ing the out­come of Mon­day’s 23rd na­tion­al elec­tion and 15th since In­de­pen­dence, its vol­ume will trum­pet pub­lic views on the over­all elec­tion is­sue: se­cu­ri­ty. From fi­nan­cial purse to phys­i­cal per­son, spread from bread-and-but­ter base to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties.

Key con­sid­er­a­tions: sur­vival, sta­bil­i­ty - and trust. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly in that or­der. Key to vic­to­ry: the “grass­roots.” Key to play­ers: re­tain and at­tain.

PNM’s ex­ter­nal bat­tles since 2015 have tak­en a toll, while its re­solve was al­so test­ed in­ter­nal­ly by the con­vo­lut­ed Dr Kei­th Row­ley lead­er­ship tran­si­tion process and elec­tion launch. The par­ty’s 23 seats in the 2015 polls fell to 22 in 2020, was gut­ted to one THA seat in 2021, and al­so slid in 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls. PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers got few­er votes in the PNM’s 2022 in­ter­nals than UNC coun­ter­parts did in that par­ty’s 2024 in­ter­nals.

The cost to the PNM ex­pand­ed when the UNC, re­plete with fund­ing and pro­fes­sion­al plan­ning, un­veiled the punch be­hind its Coali­tion of In­ter­ests - tar­get­ing he ‘ground’, T&T’s largest elec­torate mar­ket share via so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers of all kinds to ex­pand ranks via slick, savvy, pitch-per­fect pre­sen­ta­tion.

PNM, fight­ing hard against shifts to­wards UNC and pos­si­ble wave build­ing, via Young’s “Bold New Chap­ter,” presents the nov­el­ty of his lead­er­ship in an Afro-TT-based par­ty, al­most as much the nov­el­ty of Per­sad- Bisses­sar’s 2010 de­but as a fe­male PM. PNM’s tapped in­to sup­port UNC’s lost from its base and mid-ground. The bulk of its can­di­dates are ex­pe­ri­enced in gov­ern­ment and man­i­festo plans tar­get spe­cif­ic im­proved de­liv­ery, up­grad­ed con­sid­er­a­tions, log­jam clear­ing, and new eco­nom­ic di­rec­tions.

UNC’s of­fered Trumpian notes bal­anced by pop­ulist of­fer­ings, heavy on bread and but­ter promis­es, light on ex­pla­na­tions, flavoured with a catchy “win” jin­gle. The re­cruit­ment of strong fig­ures - some com­pound­ing UNC’s cred­i­bil­i­ty is­sues - sought to counter loss of sup­port in­clud­ing from Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), the Rush­ton Paray fac­tion and to bol­ster weak­ness re­gard­ing can­di­dates and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s phys­i­cal­i­ty.

Ab­sence from front­lines of ex-min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath has spo­ken vol­umes.

With 1,679 polling di­vi­sions and bound­ary changes to 16 con­stituen­cies, bat­tle­grounds in­volve the East-West cor­ri­dor and Moru­ga. On Thurs­day, Young, in San­gre Grande, and Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in Moru­ga, spoke from lo­ca­tions which each par­ty needs to hold - and which the oth­er has in their crosshairs.

The prime tar­get is St Joseph, where PNM’s fight­ing against a ris­ing UNC stream and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) can­di­date Gary Grif­fith holds “power­bro­ker” sta­tus.

UNC projects hold­ing Ch­agua­nas East, Clax­ton Bay, Barataria/San Juan, and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la. PNM projects hold­ing, among oth­ers, San Fer­nan­do West and Tu­na­puna. PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings’ La Hor­quet­ta fight with ex-PN­Mite, UNC’s Phillip Watts, threat­ens not on­ly Cum­mings’ po­lit­i­cal ca­reer but al­so the PNM’s ex­ec­u­tive.

Be­yond the nine-way To­ba­go West fight - the largest num­ber of can­di­dates - Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke may hold the fate of some in his hand. The elec­tion’s at a crit­i­cal junc­ture for the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP), where UNC links will al­so have to be con­sid­ered along­side TPP’s chances at THA elec­tions due lat­est, Jan­u­ary 2026.

At stake is Pa­tri­ot Front (PF) Cou­va North can­di­date Mick­ela Pan­day’s po­lit­i­cal path, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lat­est (pos­si­bly last) lead­er­ship chal­lenge (win or lose) and Young’s po­lit­i­cal fu­ture.

Vot­er turnout is cru­cial af­ter the 58.08 per cent turnout in 2020. Whether UNC ini­tia­tive or PNM dis­in­cen­tive’s in play, elec­tion day op­er­a­tions re­main the fi­nal fac­tor: PNM’s leg­endary “ma­chine” against UNC’s ef­fi­cien­cies.

Af­ter the boasts, ap­peals, threats, woo­ing and cel­e­brat­ing, the big­ger voic­es of 1,154,708 vot­ers will soon be heard. Stri­dent­ly - or silent­ly.