Pe­ter Christo­pher &

Rad­hi­ca De sil­va

As evening fell on yes­ter­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the head­quar­ters bear­ing the UNC’s Ris­ing Sun sym­bol on Mulchan Seuchan Road, Ch­agua­nas, emerged as a gath­er­ing point for par­ty faith­ful.

Ear­ly cau­tious op­ti­mism grad­u­al­ly gave way to ju­bi­lant cel­e­bra­tion, as broad­casts from the par­ty’s home base re­layed en­cour­ag­ing signs of an im­pend­ing vic­to­ry.

Cars filled the spaces next to the build­ing, with some even park­ing along the north­bound lane of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way be­fore cross­ing the makeshift bridge set up for pedes­tri­an ac­cess to the head­quar­ters. From ear­ly on, the crowd watched with in­ter­est as the PNM slipped be­hind in both To­ba­go seats.

Short­ly af­ter 8 pm, an­tic­i­pa­tion rose as UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced vic­to­ry in her Siparia seat, which she has rep­re­sent­ed for al­most three decades.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the vot­ers in her Siparia home base, she said, “Let me thank the peo­ple of Siparia. I can de­clare Siparia safe­ly won. I de­clare the first seat in this elec­tion to Siparia.” She not­ed the pos­i­tive mo­men­tum, say­ing, “The feed­back thus far is very, very good.”

As pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures showed the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) lead­ing in To­ba­go, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the trend was promis­ing. She ex­pressed deep grat­i­tude to the UNC’s coali­tion part­ners—the trade union, the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty, the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union—and loy­al sup­port­ers.

“I al­so thank all our coali­tion part­ners who have played a great role and the rank-and-file UNC mem­ber­ship who nev­er, nev­er left my side. They held me up when I was falling down. They were al­ways there with me.”

In the UNC head­quar­ters, the crowd cheered as news came in that Sad­dam Ho­sein had de­clared vic­to­ry in Barataria/San Juan, while Roger Alexan­der and Phillip Watts were hold­ing ad­van­tages in Tu­na­puna and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro re­spec­tive­ly.

Short­ly af­ter 9 pm, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared vic­to­ry over­all, not­ing that the par­ty had re­tained its seats from 2020 and gained key ad­van­tages in mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies. De­clar­ing that the UNC had se­cured 19 safe seats and sev­er­al mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies, she emerged from the Siparia con­stituen­cy of­fice to the sound of blar­ing mu­sic trucks and chants from ex­cit­ed sup­port­ers wav­ing yel­low flags. As she de­scend­ed the steps and head­ed to­wards her wait­ing ve­hi­cle, a mem­ber shout­ed, “The next Prime Min­is­ter!”

Speak­ing briefly be­fore her de­par­ture to the par­ty head­quar­ters, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “We’ve kept our 19, and we’ve gained two or three more. To­ba­go has gone clear.”

Re­flect­ing on the cam­paign, she said it was clean. “First, let me thank Almighty God. We’ve had a very, very clean cam­paign launch, a very strong cam­paign.”

Ques­tioned about fu­ture part­ner­ships with TPP, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I al­ways said there are many rooms in the house of the ris­ing sun. There is space and place for every­one. We need to work to­geth­er to build Trinidad and To­ba­go. So all are wel­come. All will be wel­comed. We have to re­build this coun­try.”

Busi­ness­man Glen­ford Ram­nar­ine, who had ear­li­er ar­rived at the Siparia con­stituen­cy to lend sup­port, said he felt con­fi­dent from ear­ly on that the UNC would emerge vic­to­ri­ous. “The peo­ple have spo­ken,” Ram­nar­ine said. “They are fed up of bro­ken promis­es. Kam­la of­fers hope and sta­bil­i­ty.” He added, “Tonight is just the be­gin­ning. We are see­ing the peo­ple’s de­sire for re­al change.”

By the time PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­ced­ed the elec­tion around 10:15 pm, the UNC crowd was al­ready cel­e­brat­ing the TPP’s sweep of To­ba­go.

In an im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion to Row­ley’s con­ces­sion, Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader Prakash Ra­mad­har said he was heart­ened by the man­ner it was done. He ex­plained the win was not a sur­prise, not­ing a shift in at­ti­tude even with­in PNM strong­holds in the last few weeks of cam­paign­ing.

“I won’t use the word tri­umphant, but lib­er­at­ed. I’m hap­py that the coun­try can breathe,” he said.

“We felt that in the ground. Well through­out the length and breadth, in­clud­ing hard­core sea lots, where young per­sons in par­tic­u­lar were com­ing for­ward and say­ing they were fed up and they need­ed a change. So tonight’s re­sults are not sur­pris­ing, but up­lift­ing. And in a way, some­thing has changed in the pol­i­tics, be­cause when we were cam­paign­ing, we felt a sense of ca­ma­raderie be­tween camps.”

By 10:30 pm the mu­sic truck had fur­ther en­er­gised the ex­pec­tant crowd, who on­ly had to wait a fur­ther ten min­utes to hear the UNC leader de­liv­er her vic­to­ry speech.

She opened by thank­ing her sup­port­ers: “You have car­ried me on a jour­ney that is filled with love, de­ter­mi­na­tion and re­silience. I start­ed off this cam­paign by say­ing, you will be the re­al he­roes in this sto­ry. And I end this cam­paign say­ing the same, you are the re­al he­roes in the sto­ry. All of you.”

As she con­tin­ued her speech, punc­tu­at­ed with fa­mil­iar cam­paign promis­es met by loud cheers, in par­tic­u­lar the promise to re­open Petrotrin, the crowd was roused fur­ther.

Then she gave way to let the cel­e­bra­tions con­tin­ue.