With around 1,070 votes sep­a­rat­ing the win­ning can­di­date from the main chal­lenger in the last gen­er­al elec­tion, the con­stituen­cy of Moru­ga/Table­land has be­come a fierce po­lit­i­cal war zone. The two ma­jor par­ties, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), have hit the ground run­ning, flood­ing the area with cam­paign­ers and promis­es. On the front­lines, their foot sol­diers bat­tle for dom­i­nance— with al­le­ga­tions of tear­ing down ban­ners, rip­ping flags, and clash­ing on so­cial me­dia.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­ing As­so­ci­a­tion is elat­ed that it was able to ne­go­ti­ate on be­half of nurs­es, which it be­lieves swayed the hand of Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to en­sure they re­ceive a much-need­ed rise in salaries.

A Com­mon­wealth Ob­serv­er Group (COG) will ar­rive in this coun­try next Tues­day (April 22), as they have been de­ployed to ob­serve the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Po­lit­i­cal Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has lam­bast­ed both for­mer PNM at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and fired Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) di­rec­tor Roger Best for sup­port­ing the UNC.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has raised con­cern about the sus­pect­ed align­ment of op­pos­ing par­ty sup­port­ers with crim­i­nals in an ef­fort to ad­vance their cause in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Out­go­ing Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne says she is still a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) mem­ber and has not de­cid­ed if to con­tin­ue her af­fil­i­a­tion with the par­ty.

Less than two weeks be­fore the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the in­cum­bent Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has un­veiled its man­i­festo, promis­ing “a bold, new chap­ter” of na­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion if the par­ty is re-elect­ed in­to gov­ern­ment.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Work­ers Union (TTP­WU) has raised se­ri­ous alarm over the treat­ment of TTPost work­ers, warn­ing that sys­temic un­der­staffing and op­er­a­tional strain could jeop­ar­dise the time­ly de­liv­ery of poll cards to thou­sands of cit­i­zens ahead of the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is promis­ing to im­ple­ment a com­pre­hen­sive frame­work to reg­u­late large-scale cul­ti­va­tion, agro-pro­cess­ing, and ex­port of cannabis, which the par­ty says is es­sen­tial to un­lock­ing the in­dus­try’s full eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has dis­missed calls by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to re­move its re­turn­ing of­fi­cer for San Fer­nan­do East.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has con­firmed that the work­ers seen on a so­cial me­dia video re­mov­ing a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­date’s ban­ner from a light pole in the Table­land/Moru­ga con­stituen­cy were act­ing on be­half of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC).

To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) can­di­date for To­ba­go West Joel Mar­cus Samp­son says if elect­ed to Par­lia­ment, he will con­tin­ue the work he start­ed un­der the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly—es­pe­cial­ly in youth de­vel­op­ment, sports, and com­mu­ni­ty em­pow­er­ment.