In the lead-up to April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, a Guardian Me­dia com­mis­sioned pub­lic opin­ion poll, con­duct­ed by Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany, showed that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had a sta­tis­ti­cal lead over the in­cum­bent Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in 11 key mar­gin­al seats in Trinidad.

Iron­i­cal­ly, these find­ings were re­ject­ed out of hand by both par­ties, but have now been borne out in the pre­lim­i­nary re­sults of Mon­day’s elec­tion re­leased by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) yes­ter­day.

Even though Dr Ghany did not fore­see the two To­ba­go seats go­ing to the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty, his analy­sis was spot on in re­la­tion to Trinidad vot­er sen­ti­ment, re­flect­ed in the fi­nal out­come of 26 seats for the UNC and 13 for the in­cum­bent par­ty.

In suf­fer­ing one of the biggest po­lit­i­cal de­feats in its his­to­ry, the PNM lost nine seats in one go.

In con­trast, the UNC achieved its high­est seat count ever with 26 seats, sur­pass­ing the 21 it won in 2010 as part of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion. 

These num­bers speak to vot­er re­pu­di­a­tion of the PNM’s lead­er­ship, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who was in charge of the par­ty and the gov­ern­ment for the last decade, as well as that of his suc­ces­sor Stu­art Young, who was giv­en the reins as prime min­is­ter a mere six weeks ago.

Vot­ers made their stance clear, de­ci­sive­ly show­ing they did not wish for the PNM to lead the coun­try for the next five years. In­stead, they gave the UNC a strong and un­de­ni­able man­date. 

What, there­fore, is the next step for the PNM? 

In their con­ces­sion speech­es on Mon­day night both Dr Row­ley, as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader, and Young, as the prime min­is­ter who led the coun­try in­to elec­tions, tried to re­as­sure sup­port­ers of the par­ty’s abil­i­ty to re­build.

How­ev­er, it is ev­i­dent the PNM faces ma­jor chal­lenges in re-es­tab­lish­ing a con­nec­tion with the elec­torate. 

The no­tion that Young does not em­body a new di­rec­tion but is mere­ly Dr Row­ley 2.0, left vot­ers doubt­ful about the PNM’s abil­i­ty to bring about mean­ing­ful change in the next five years.

In this con­text, the ap­peal to the pub­lic for the PNM to be giv­en a chance for a new be­gin­ning was in­ef­fec­tive, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sid­er­ing that in their ten-year rule, they had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­act the very changes they were now propos­ing to im­ple­ment. 

Go­ing for­ward, the par­ty must, there­fore, face up to the re­al­i­ty that the pub­lic re­ject­ed it as a suit­able unit to gov­ern the coun­try, amid con­tin­u­ing eco­nom­ic, so­cial and cul­tur­al dif­fi­cul­ties.

The im­me­di­ate chal­lenge for the PNM’s mem­bers, there­fore, is to de­cide to­day who will lead them in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as Op­po­si­tion Leader.

In ad­di­tion, the par­ty will ul­ti­mate­ly need to ap­point a new po­lit­i­cal leader, bear­ing in mind that the best can­di­date may not now nec­es­sar­i­ly be an elect­ed MP. 

This begs the ques­tion of whether the PNM prefers to sus­tain a dual lead­er­ship frame­work or as­sign a sin­gle leader for the par­ty and the Op­po­si­tion. 

A time­ly res­o­lu­tion of these is­sues is es­sen­tial, as it will pro­vide the PNM with a lead­er­ship struc­ture to be­gin the work of re-en­gag­ing with the pub­lic ahead of the next gen­er­al elec­tion by 2030.

An ear­ly cure is al­so crit­i­cal ahead of the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion, which will of­fer the PNM its first gauge of whether it is mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion where pub­lic trust is con­cerned.