With just three days to go be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour has flagged a spike in se­ri­ous breach­es of the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct, rais­ing con­cerns about the tone and tac­tics emerg­ing in the fi­nal days of the cam­paign.

The coun­cil, led by Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, said yes­ter­day that it had re­ceived sev­er­al com­plaints in the past week, many of which were up­held af­ter re­view. These in­clude the use of racial­ly charged and deroga­to­ry lan­guage, char­ac­ter at­tacks, ex­ces­sive neg­a­tive cam­paign­ing, and the re­moval or de­face­ment of op­po­nents’ cam­paign ma­te­ri­als.

On Thurs­day, PNM Diego Mar­tin North East can­di­date Colm Im­bert post­ed a video on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) show­ing a man rip­ping down one of his bill­boards.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling, ac­cord­ing to the coun­cil, were re­ports of racial slurs at po­lit­i­cal ral­lies and the al­leged mis­use of state re­sources for cam­paign­ing—both of which are clear vi­o­la­tions of the code.

On the im­prop­er use of state re­sources for po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns, the coun­cil not­ed that Clause 13 of the code of con­duct ad­dress­es this is­sue di­rect­ly, af­firm­ing par­ties and can­di­dates shall “not per­mit the use and abuse of State re­sources for po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns.”

The coun­cil’s lat­est state­ment fol­lows weeks of mount­ing ten­sion on the cam­paign trail. Ear­li­er this month, a po­lit­i­cal ral­ly in San Fer­nan­do drew crit­i­cism af­ter in­flam­ma­to­ry re­marks were made about a ri­val can­di­date’s eth­nic back­ground, prompt­ing pub­lic back­lash and calls for a for­mal apol­o­gy. Dozens of posters be­long­ing to mul­ti­ple par­ties were al­so re­port­ed torn down overnight in key bat­tle­ground con­stituen­cies, in­clud­ing Tu­na­puna and Moru­ga/Table­land.

In March, the coun­cil cau­tioned po­lit­i­cal par­ties against stag­ing dis­rup­tive mo­tor­cades, which it said had led to al­ter­ca­tions be­tween ri­val sup­port­ers. While no wide­spread vi­o­lence has been re­port­ed, the coun­cil not­ed that these re­cur­ring in­ci­dents un­der­mine pub­lic trust in the elec­toral process and threat­en the peace­ful na­ture of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic en­gage­ment.

De­spite ac­knowl­edg­ing that the cam­paign has been “large­ly peace­ful,” the coun­cil em­pha­sised that eth­i­cal stan­dards must be up­held dur­ing the fi­nal stretch.

“We call on all par­ties and can­di­dates to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law, and to con­duct them­selves in a man­ner that en­cour­ages peace, re­spect, and na­tion­al uni­ty,” the state­ment read.

The coun­cil re­it­er­at­ed its call to avoid vote-buy­ing, defama­tion, dis­crim­i­na­tion, in­tim­i­da­tion near polling sta­tions, and any con­duct that could pro­voke un­rest.

It al­so urged re­straint in post-elec­tion cel­e­bra­tions, re­mind­ing po­lit­i­cal ac­tors that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains a shared space for all cit­i­zens.

“Let us be guid­ed by the words of our Na­tion­al An­them: ‘Here every creed and race find an equal place,’” the coun­cil con­clud­ed.