Days be­fore T&T de­cides who will lead it for the next five years, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Mar­vin Gon­za­les says he is aware of who may be be­hind a pur­port­ed plot to dis­rupt the gen­er­al elec­tions.

Gon­za­les warned trou­ble­mak­ers that he was aware of who they were and even who their fi­nanciers may be, sug­gest­ing that a po­lit­i­cal par­ty may be re­spon­si­ble for the threat.

At a po­lice me­dia brief­ing ear­li­er this week, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin re­port­ed that he re­ceived in­tel­li­gence that there were plans from cer­tain un­named el­e­ments to “dis­rupt the elec­toral process”.

Ben­jamin did not name any par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­u­als or or­gan­i­sa­tions dur­ing the brief­ing but al­so urged all po­lit­i­cal par­ties to en­sure that their mem­bers obeyed the law and ob­served the nec­es­sary guide­lines.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter a rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny at the Lopinot His­tor­i­cal Site on Fri­day, Gon­za­les said he was briefed by po­lice on the in­ci­dent and was con­cerned by the in­for­ma­tion shared with him.

The in­tel­li­gence, Gon­za­les said, de­scribed a “mas­sive vot­er sup­pres­sion cam­paign” in­volv­ing his par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents and lament­ed the lengths some par­ties were will­ing to go to for vic­to­ry.

“Be­ing a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and be­ing in­volved in this elec­toral cam­paign, I hon­est­ly did not be­lieve that there were peo­ple who op­er­ate on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape who would re­sort to crim­i­nal ac­tions to dis­rupt the elec­toral process.

“That, to me, is cause for con­cern. When you get in­for­ma­tion that po­lit­i­cal op­er­a­tives are col­lud­ing with gangs and crim­i­nals to dis­rupt the elec­toral process, es­pe­cial­ly in some of the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies, it must both­er every right-think­ing cit­i­zen.

“So not on­ly as a min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty but as a cit­i­zen... I know some­times po­lit­i­cal cam­paign­ing can be very tense, but when op­er­a­tives are pre­pared to re­sort to crim­i­nal ac­tions, it is some­thing we should all be con­cerned about.”

De­spite his con­cerns, how­ev­er, Gon­za­les said he was con­vinced that the po­lice, with sup­port from the de­fence force, were ca­pa­ble of main­tain­ing that free and fair elec­tions were held with no in­ci­dents of in­tim­i­da­tion or sup­pres­sion.

He said he has been in con­stant con­tact with the act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er and DCP Curt Si­mon, who serves as Gold Com­man­der for the gen­er­al elec­tion.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment on Fri­day, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin did not want to com­ment on whether the in­tel­li­gence point­ed to any par­tic­u­lar po­lit­i­cal par­ty be­ing in­volved in the pur­port­ed threat to the elec­tions, as he main­tained in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still in the process of ver­i­fy­ing whether such a plot was re­al.

Ben­jamin said po­lice in cer­tain di­vi­sions were fol­low­ing up on their en­quiries to de­ter­mine whether there was an ac­tu­al threat to the gen­er­al elec­tions.

“We are be­ing proac­tive and putting things in place and are hav­ing field op­er­a­tors out in those di­vi­sions do­ing the nec­es­sary in­ves­ti­ga­tions on the in­tel­li­gence to de­ter­mine the ve­rac­i­ty of the in­for­ma­tion.

“Nev­er­the­less, we are putting things in place to en­sure safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, es­pe­cial­ly in those ar­eas where the in­tel­li­gence sug­gests.”

He said di­vulging in­for­ma­tion on the per­sons or groups sus­pect­ed to be in­volved in the plot could al­so em­bold­en them but warned all groups, whether po­lit­i­cal or crim­i­nal, that the po­lice were still in con­trol.

How­ev­er, in­cum­bent MP for Oropouche East Roodal Mooni­lal dis­missed Gon­za­les’ re­marks on the pur­port­ed plot, de­scrib­ing it as a “scare tac­tic” to dis­suade the pub­lic from vot­ing.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp, Mooni­lal said he pre­ferred to hear the de­tails of any threat to the gen­er­al elec­tions di­rect­ly from the po­lice them­selves.

“In­stead of en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to vote, they (the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment) are seek­ing to in­tim­i­date vot­ers and in­ter­fere in the elec­toral process.

“I ask the po­lice to do po­lice work and leave PNM politi­cians out of it in the last few hours of their regime.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, head of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Gary Grif­fith said he did not nec­es­sar­i­ly agree with Ben­jamin’s de­ci­sion to speak pub­licly on the pur­port­ed threat, as it could stir pan­ic.

While Gon­za­les said he sup­port­ed Ben­jamin’s de­ci­sion to an­nounce the threat pub­licly, Grif­fith warned that do­ing so could al­so give crim­i­nals an ad­van­tage by alert­ing them that the po­lice were aware of their ac­tiv­i­ties, there­by giv­ing them the chance to con­ceal any plan.

Grif­fith, who served as po­lice com­mis­sion­er from 2018 to 2021, said if the plot was cred­i­ble, he hoped the po­lice were ca­pa­ble of iden­ti­fy­ing who specif­i­cal­ly was in­volved and tak­ing ac­tion to ap­pre­hend them soon­er rather than lat­er. Re­fer­ring to past in­stances where he said a po­lit­i­cal par­ty tried to ral­ly sup­port from un­der­world fig­ures and gangs, Grif­fith said he hoped this was not an­oth­er ex­am­ple of their in­volve­ment with crim­i­nals.

“We saw where promis­es were made to gang mem­bers to pass it on to the rest of their troops to vote for a par­ty, and in re­turn, big con­tracts will be award­ed.

“We are aware of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty where se­nior mem­bers of that par­ty were in­stru­men­tal in giv­ing mas­sive state con­tracts; we have mas­sive re­ports of in­di­vid­u­als ro­man­ti­cal­ly in­volved with them (crim­i­nals).

“This is all one po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“I shud­der to think if they’re still giv­ing the same kind of promis­es that this is what is hap­pen­ing again; it shows a lack of ethics, but if it is they are de­cid­ing to go one step fur­ther to caus­ing some de­gree of fear or pre­vent­ing peo­ple from vot­ing, then we have reached a vir­tu­al point of no re­turn.”

Grif­fith al­so called on the pub­lic to not be dis­suad­ed or in­tim­i­dat­ed from ex­er­cis­ing their right to vote on Mon­day and said the pub­lic should know that they were free to do so with sup­port from law en­force­ment.