A day af­ter the elec­tion bell rang, prospec­tive can­di­dates in the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy, for both the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), pound­ed the pave­ments, walk­ing and meet­ing res­i­dents in the area.

Ro­man Catholic priest Fa­ther David Khan says hold­ing a Gen­er­al Elec­tion dur­ing Lent can cre­ate a height­ened po­lit­i­cal cli­mate that could over­shad­ow the re­flec­tive na­ture of the sea­son, lead­ing to po­lar­iza­tion and po­lit­i­cal at­tacks.

That was the re­ac­tion from Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the news that Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir had re­signed from the par­ty.

Op­po­si­tion Led­er Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has writ­ten a let­ter to Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­quest­ing in­de­pen­dent in­ter­na­tion­al elec­tion ob­servers for the up­com­ing 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

UNC Chair­man Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo is com­plain­ing the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour, which the par­ty with­drew from in Jan­u­ary, has "no le­gal au­thor­i­ty" over its af­fairs and should re­frain from any com­men­tary about its con­duct.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has fi­nal­ly bro­ken his si­lence on a bul­ly­ing in­ci­dent in­volv­ing him which oc­curred some 33 years ago while he was a stu­dent at St Mary’s Col­lege in Port-of-Spain.

We al­so agree with him that it is a mat­ter that should nev­er be politi­cised. This is why the tim­ing of this week's vi­ral post on an in­ci­dent in which he was in­volved, as a teenag­er 33 years ago at St Mary's Col­lege, is very un­for­tu­nate.

The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour has start­ed to mon­i­tor ac­tiv­i­ties re­lat­ed to all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, can­di­dates and sup­port­ers af­ter the April 28 date for the Gen­er­al Elec­tion was an­nounced.

Arrange­ments be­tween the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and the Con­gress of the Peo­ple are be­ing fi­nalised this week, UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Mon­day.

A deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Hon­esty, Op­por­tu­ni­ty, Per­for­mance and Em­pow­er­ment (HOPE) par­ty has re­signed fol­low­ing a con­tentious joint meet­ing with the Com­mu­ni­ty Ref­or­ma­tion Net­work (CRM) NGO and the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA).

Dr Rai Rag­bir, the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, an­nounced his im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), ex­press­ing deep dis­ap­point­ment with the par­ty's cur­rent di­rec­tion. In a press re­lease, Dr. Rag­bir stat­ed that the UNC "no longer up­holds the val­ues it once rep­re­sent­ed" and has be­come in­flu­enced by in­di­vid­u­als whose con­duct he finds "deeply trou­bling."

Nikoli Ed­wards, leader of the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty, an­nounced that he and his par­ty will not con­test the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, cit­ing fi­nan­cial con­straints and sys­temic chal­lenges with­in the elec­toral process.