As the coun­try pre­pares to head to the polls on Mon­day, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings is con­fi­dent his par­ty will win the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) sta­tis­tics, 658,297 peo­ple vot­ed in the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, with 322,250 votes go­ing to the PNM and 309,188 votes go­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Re­veal­ing his par­ty’s strat­e­gy yes­ter­day, Cum­mings said not on­ly PNM strong­hold con­stituen­cies but all the mar­gin­al seats will be red on April 28.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia while can­vass­ing the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro con­stituen­cy yes­ter­day, Cum­mings said, “It is my in­ten­tion that we will win all of them, every sin­gle one. That is our strat­e­gy. We will win all of the mar­gin­als and re­tain all of the seats that we have now as well and that is where we’re head­ing.”

While he did not want to cast a de­tailed pre­dic­tion, he said he be­lieved right-think­ing cit­i­zens will vote the Gov­ern­ment back in of­fice.

“I think that the PNM is go­ing to win this elec­tion. We are go­ing to re­turn to gov­ern­ment. I would not pre­dict seats. If I had to pre­dict seats, I would want a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty but the peo­ple un­der­stand that the coun­try re­quires sta­ble lead­er­ship and there­fore of­fers that, and tak­ing the coun­try for­ward in a re­spon­si­ble way is some­thing that the PNM can and has done. And, there­fore, those right-think­ing cit­i­zens in Trinidad and To­ba­go who want to see Trinidad and To­ba­go move for­ward and de­vel­op, who want to make sure that in terms of the geopol­i­tics, that we have com­pe­tent per­sons to rep­re­sent Trinidad and To­ba­go in dis­cus­sions and ne­go­ti­a­tions, will se­lect the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment as the ob­vi­ous choice.”

Apart from his per­son­al pre­dic­tions, Guardian Me­dia asked Cum­mings what the par­ty’s in­ter­nal polls were say­ing go­ing in­to the fi­nal stretch.

Cum­mings said, “Strat­e­gy is not strat­e­gy if it’s known to every­one and there­fore there’s some in­for­ma­tion I can­not di­vulge to the pub­lic. But what I can tell you is that it is look­ing very good for the PNM.”

Ad­dress­ing claims that the PNM has been get­ting help from De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty strate­gists, Cum­mings said get­ting ad­vice is not un­com­mon for any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

In­ter­nal­ly, he al­so re­vealed the key play­ers be­hind the par­ty’s cam­paign.

He said, “The PNM is a very struc­tured or­gan­i­sa­tion and we are very or­gan­ised in what we do. I serve as the gen­er­al sec­re­tary. The par­ty’s strat­e­gy is be­ing led by the lead­er­ship of the par­ty, which in­volves all the play­ers. Dr Row­ley, as po­lit­i­cal leader, Prime Min­is­ter Young as chair­man, my­self as gen­er­al sec­re­tary. We have four deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, one from To­ba­go, three in Trinidad. We have Min­is­ter (Camille Robin­son) Reg­is who is the la­dy vice chair­man of the par­ty, and there­fore that group con­sti­tutes the lead­er­ship and the brain­pow­er of the di­rec­tion of the par­ty. If ad­vice is sought, as all po­lit­i­cal par­ties do from var­i­ous quar­ters, that is par for the course. It’s all part of the process.”