The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is call­ing for a safe and in­ci­dent-free elec­tion sea­son af­ter the date for the gen­er­al elec­tion was an­nounced yes­ter­day.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, re­spond­ing to the April 28 date, urged cit­i­zens to be re­spon­si­ble.

Cham­ber pres­i­dent Ki­ran Ma­haraj said, “This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­er­cise your right as a cit­i­zen and go out and vote. Make the choice that you are most com­fort­able with. We look for­ward to safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty as the ac­tiv­i­ty on the cam­paign trail will now be in­tense, and we hope they will be in­ci­dent-free, es­pe­cial­ly where there will be pub­lic gath­er­ings. We al­so hope that all can­di­dates am­pli­fy mes­sages in the best in­ter­est of all cit­i­zens.”

How­ev­er, the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce (GS­FCC) pres­i­dent, Ki­ran Singh, felt the date was strate­gic.

“The Op­po­si­tion doesn’t seem to be ready. They haven’t field­ed all of their can­di­dates, while the PNM (Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment), which is the par­ty that sits in gov­ern­ment at this point in time, has field­ed their 41 can­di­dates, and it ap­pears from last week­end that that was the start of the elec­tion cam­paign.

“The for­mer prime Min­is­ter Dr (Kei­th) Row­ley stepped down, and the new Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, took the helm of the lead­er­ship of the coun­try and lead­er­ship of the Gov­ern­ment. He sent strong sig­nals to the coun­try that the PNM is ready for the gen­er­al elec­tion and the op­po­si­tion would be caught as they don’t have their full slate of can­di­dates and ob­vi­ous­ly, they wouldn’t have enough time to pre­pare and plan for this very im­por­tant gen­er­al elec­tion,” said Singh, who had pre­vi­ous­ly screened as a po­ten­tial can­di­date for the PNM last year.

The Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) said it was look­ing on with keen in­ter­est, al­though var­i­ous busi­ness lead­ers un­der its ban­ner had mixed views on when the gen­er­al elec­tion is be­ing held.

Daphne Bartlett, the pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion, ques­tioned why it was an­nounced af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley stepped down.

“We from the SBA were aware that the elec­tion was go­ing to be in April and won­dered why there was all the dra­ma of the prime min­is­ter re­sign­ing two days be­fore the elec­tion date was made pub­lic. That was a lot of stress placed on the pop­u­la­tion. We ex­pe­ri­enced the fear of a new Prime Min­is­ter with­out know­ing his lead­er­ship skills.”

Ri­car­do Mo­hammed, the pres­i­dent of the East­ern Busi­ness Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion and vice chair­man of the CR­BC, shared a sim­i­lar view.

“The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is a bit shocked at the quick ac­tion by Prime Min­is­ter (Stu­art) Young to call an elec­tion one day af­ter be­ing sworn in as the coun­try’s leader. It begs many ques­tions as to why the for­mer prime min­is­ter did not call the elec­tion him­self.”

He added, “We are ex­treme­ly hap­py that the elec­tion date has been an­nounced. We wish all the de­serv­ing can­di­dates suc­cess and look for­ward to a coun­try that would re­vert to the T&T we are used to.”

Ang­ie Jairam, Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent said the elec­tion was wel­comed and could lead to the coun­try’s sta­bil­i­sa­tion.

“The cit­i­zens will now have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to choose by vot­ing the Gov­ern­ment they be­lieve can move them for­ward. Cit­i­zens have a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right to make that choice. In an ear­ly elec­tion with a clear man­date, the new gov­ern­ment will set­tle down and get on with the peo­ple’s busi­ness and dri­ve us in­to a more pro­gres­sive state,” said Jairam.

Samuel George, the in­ter­im chair­man of the Gas­par­il­lo Cham­ber of Com­merce, al­so wel­comed the date be­ing an­nounced. He urged the pub­lic to vote.

How­ev­er, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries shared Jairam’s view that the elec­tion could set­tle the coun­try amid the State of Emer­gency.

TTC­SI pres­i­dent Di­ane Joseph said, “The TTC­SI has no chal­lenge with that an­nounce­ment. We be­lieve that Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young would have tak­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do so ear­ly dur­ing his term in of­fice so that he could set­tle down his team and com­mence the work of restor­ing all of our chal­lenges and bring­ing a sense of calm to our coun­try.”