The peo­ple who get in­to pol­i­tics, who en­gage in po­lit­i­cal com­bat and stay in pol­i­tics, are peo­ple of con­sid­er­able courage.

Pol­i­tics is a tough, some­times un­for­giv­ing, pro­fes­sion. There can be time wasters in pol­i­tics, it is true; some can get in­to pol­i­tics for the wrong rea­son, that is al­so true; oth­ers might just sense an op­por­tu­ni­ty and jump in for the ex­cite­ment of it, and then lose their way. But to serve con­stituents ded­i­cat­ed­ly; to meet your oblig­a­tions ef­fec­tive­ly in Par­lia­ment; to do your best as a min­is­ter; and to do these things hon­est­ly, sin­cere­ly and with in­tegri­ty- such things re­quire time, care, com­mit­ment, re­source­ful­ness, courage, sac­ri­fice and, a strong sense of du­ty. And they de­mand thought as well as ac­tion and an ac­knowl­edge­ment of moral oblig­a­tion.

At its best, pol­i­tics can be a high­er call­ing, in­fused with pas­sion to serve and to achieve, dri­ven by a vi­sion of a more suc­cess­ful coun­try and a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life for cit­i­zens. At its worst, pol­i­tics can be a self­ish den of cor­rup­tion, ac­com­pa­nied by bad gov­ern­ment, poor gov­er­nance and cal­lous dis­re­gard for the wel­fare of cit­i­zens.

Be­ing a can­di­date is risky and it takes a lot of courage. Con­grat­u­la­tions to every can­di­date who has been se­lect­ed by their par­ty and val­i­dat­ed by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) to con­test the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

In our sys­tem, there can be on­ly one win­ner in each con­stituen­cy, and, be­yond the win­ner, every­one else on the bal­lot los­es. First past the post and that is it; no con­so­la­tion prize. So, putting one­self at the mer­cy of the peo­ple so that they can make a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic choice, calls for a lot of faith in your­self and in the peo­ple who must choose.

When a per­son en­ters pol­i­tics, from that point on, any­one can say any­thing about them. Some­times it can be true and turn out to be em­bar­rass­ing and the politi­cian then has to man­age it and live with it.

It is be­cause of this risk of rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age that politi­cians have to have a thick skin, a fight­ing spir­it and be good at ver­bal war­fare. That is the na­ture of po­lit­i­cal com­bat. There are times when this can be en­light­en­ing, but there are times when things can get very nasty.

Peo­ple vote for po­lit­i­cal par­ties and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers more than for can­di­dates though. And the im­age and rep­u­ta­tion of po­lit­i­cal par­ties and their lead­ers are of vi­tal im­por­tance.

In this 2025 cam­paign, al­though there is some bac­cha­nal on the plat­form and the cam­paign trail, the nas­ti­ness has been di­vert­ed to so­cial me­dia, the ground cam­paign and to us­ing politi­cians’ own words against them. On the plat­forms, on the oth­er hand, the fo­cus seems to be pol­i­cy, per­for­mance, con­duct, lead­er­ship, promis­es and fear.

On pol­i­cy, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is ask­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), so that the elec­torate can con­sid­er, why of­fer now what you did not do in ten years? The PNM is look­ing at pol­i­cy ar­tic­u­lat­ed by the Op­po­si­tion Leader and the UNC, and ar­gu­ing that those poli­cies will take the coun­try to a worse place.

On per­for­mance, the UNC is ask­ing what PNM per­for­mance are you speak­ing about in the last ten years, when the state of fi­nances and the econ­o­my are ev­i­dence of poor per­for­mance. The PNM is say­ing the UNC over­spent in its 2010-2015 term in gov­ern­ment and was reck­less with the coun­try’s fi­nances and does not de­serve to be re­turned to gov­ern­ment.

On con­duct, the UNC is say­ing the coun­try has ex­pe­ri­enced bul­ly­ing and cor­rup­tion for ten years as well as in­com­pe­tence. The PNM is say­ing UNC was cor­rupt for five years of gov­ern­ment and has no com­pe­tence for gov­ern­ment now.

On lead­er­ship, Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is say­ing she is the on­ly leader elect­ed by her par­ty in this elec­tion and has served well as prime min­is­ter be­fore. Mr Stu­art Young is say­ing he is of­fer­ing a new chap­ter in gov­er­nance if elect­ed, and will fix things and find so­lu­tions, since his his­to­ry as a min­is­ter is one of com­pe­tence.

There are mul­ti­ple promis­es and in­stances of fear­mon­ger­ing on both sides.

As of now, the cam­paign mo­men­tum seems to be with the UNC, while the PNM is do­ing every­thing to en­er­gise vot­ers for elec­tion day.

The cam­paigns lead­ing up to April 28 will in­ten­si­fy, and may soon yield some in­sight in­to how the scale is like­ly to tip.

Re­spect to all po­lit­i­cal par­ties and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers. The small­er par­ties in­clud­ed. May our cit­i­zens be re­spect­ed. And may Trinidad and To­ba­go ul­ti­mate­ly win in this elec­tion.

Our coun­try needs a bright fu­ture.