After the resumption of regular Local Government Elections in 2010, the electoral district of Lengua/Indian Walk in the Princes Town Regional Corporation did not exist. It was created for the 2013 Local Government Elections.
When Lengua/Indian Walk was created, it consisted of seven polling divisions, namely (i) PD3540 at the Princes Town West Secondary School, St Julien Village; (ii) PD3545 at the Fifth Company Baptist Primary School, Moruga Road, Fifth Company; (iii) PD3580 at the St Croix Community Centre, St Croix Road, Princes Town; (iv) PD3581 also at the St Croix Community Centre; (v) PD3585 at the Fifth Company Baptist School, Moruga Road, Fifth Company; (vi) PD3590 at the Princes Town West Secondary School, Naparima-Mayaro Road, St Julien Village; and (vii) PD3655 at the St Michael’s AC Primary School, Naparima-Mayaro Road, Craignish Village, Princes Town.
These polling divisions were drawn from the following electoral districts: (i) PD3540 was taken from Hindustan/Indian Walk/St Mary’s; (ii) PD3545 was taken from Fifth Company; and, (iii) PDs 3580, 3581, 3585, 3590 and 3655 were drawn from Lengua/St Julien.
In the first Local Government Elections contested in this new electoral district in 2013, the result was PNM-1,872, UNC-1,222 and ILP-621. In the second election contested in 2016, the result was PNM-1,729 and UNC-1,519. In the third election contested in 2019, the result was PNM-1,577 and UNC-1,871. We know that in the fourth election contested in August 2023, the result was a tie at 1,428 each for the PNM and the UNC.
After the discharge of an election petition, a by-election was called for last Monday and the result was PNM-1,986 and UNC-1,394. In summary, this has been a PNM-leaning marginal electoral district since its creation.
Of the five elections contested there since 2013, the PNM have won it three times and the UNC once with a dead heat in one election. The UNC has to conduct a serious post-mortem to understand the reasons for their defeat in this district as the pendulum swung back to the PNM since 2019 to a dead heat in 2023 and a PNM victory in 2024. Many speculative factors can be adduced to explain the swing back to the PNM.
One of those factors would have been the bundling of the UNC NATEX elections with the by-elections in Lengua/Indian Walk and Quinam/Morne Diablo.
The public nature of the criticisms of the current leadership of the UNC undoubtedly telegraphed to the electorate the image of a party divided. With no identifiable single leader of the resistance movement against Kamla Persad-Bissessar in the internal elections, the effect of the divisiveness was even greater.
Rushton Paray contested the position of deputy political leader together with two colleague MPs from the UNC bench, while Dinesh Rambally did not contest any position on the NATEX and Rodney Charles stayed out after publicly announcing his decision not to seek re-election to his Naparima seat in the next general election.
As a leaderless movement, the United Patriots were doomed to fail as someone needed to stand up and publicly declare that they were leading the movement and when the leadership of the party comes up for election in 2025, they would have indicated from now that they were the leader of the United Patriots, and they were leading a slate in these NATEX elections and the movement would continue next year when they would contest the post of political leader.
That did not happen. It left many questions about who is the alternative leader to Persad-Bissessar–is it Rushton Paray or Dinesh Rambally? The voters in general were confused as regards the future leadership of the UNC. That confusion would have shown itself in Lengua/Indian Walk as well as in Quinam/Morne Diablo where the PNM significantly increased its vote share.
With the leaderless movement of the United Patriots now in retreat and not in surrender mode, how does the UNC fix its internal divisions because neither Paray nor Rambally can take back what they have said about Persad-Bissesar?
Also, how does she engage them? Additionally, last Monday was the festival of Eid-ul-Adha for the Muslim community and many Muslims would have had other priorities besides voting in a local government by-election.
The story of Lengua/Indian Walk is that the PNM reclaimed an electoral district that has been theirs since its inception, except for one election out of five. That is a story that can be repeated in the Moruga/Tableland seat which the PNM desperately need to win as their future performance in Tobago is uncertain. They need to find at least two seats in Trinidad to survive. Lengua/Indian Walk may have given a clue to one.
Prof Hamid Ghany is a Professor of Constitutional Affairs and Parliamentary Studies at The University of the West Indies (UWI). He was also appointed an Honorary Professor of The UWI upon his retirement in October 2021. He continues his research and publications and also does some teaching at The UWI.