Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A be­lat­ed “birth­day gift.”

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who turned 73 last Tues­day, re­ceived a na­tion­al “Birth­day Gift” last night when her par­ty won yes­ter­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion—toss­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) back to 2010 de­feat lev­els—and made his­to­ry by be­com­ing a fe­male T&T Prime Min­is­ter a sec­ond time.

“Let us say thanks and praise to Almighty God—when God says yes, no­body can say ‘no’ ... this has been a tremen­dous bless­ing … now that the UNC has won—every­body wins!” Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared at 10.48 pm to mam­moth cheers from a sea of yel­low-clad sup­port­ers at the UNC’s Mulchan Seuchan Road, Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters

“It is now that the re­al work starts … we’ll be fo­cused on de­liv­er­ing on our promis­es. I give you the as­sur­ance that no one will be left be­hind—when UNC wins, Trin­ba­go wins,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared, thank­ing the part­ners of the par­ty’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, pri­or to close of the cam­paign, had asked T&T to give her the birth­day gift of an elec­tion vic­to­ry.

The UNC re­tained its 19 seats and al­so won mar­gin­al East-West cor­ri­dor and San Fer­nan­do West seats held by the PNM.

She has al­so wel­comed the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP)—led by To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly chair­man Far­ley Au­gus­tine—which won the two To­ba­go seats held by the PNM.

The UNC and TPP will now share the Gov­ern­ment in Par­lia­ment, while the PNM en­ters Op­po­si­tion—mak­ing it three par­ties in Par­lia­ment.

PNM Po­lit­i­cal Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­ced­ed de­feat at 10.15 pm, ahead of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s vic­to­ry speech.

Row­ley said, “Tonight is not a good night for the PNM … it is clear at this time that we have lost the elec­tion. We have done it be­fore, con­ced­ing de­feat on elec­tion night but to­mor­row is a new day.

“We con­ced­ed in 1986, 1995 and in 2010, so this 70-year-old par­ty, some­times you win, some­times you don’t win—tonight is one of those nights where sur­pris­ing­ly, we have not done very well in the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. But from (Tues­day), the PNM will be­gin to pre­pare it­self for the next call with­in the next 60 months. We wish all the lead­ers well, as our coun­try is now in their hands.”

Row­ley said if last night’s trend held, PNM would end up with 10 or 12 seats. He said he had no re­grets in sup­port­ing Stu­art Young as prime min­is­ter.

Young, at Row­ley’s side, said he had won his Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West seat. While say­ing he was ob­vi­ous­ly dis­ap­point­ed, Young vowed to keep fight­ing.

“The elec­torate has spo­ken tonight and we look for­ward to to­mor­row morn­ing ... we’ll be back on the road, re­build­ing and en­cour­ag­ing the youths to come forth ... I cer­tain­ly look for­ward to play­ing a part in that and a lead­er­ship role in that.”

Last night’s UNC vic­to­ry was a dra­mat­ic cli­max to two years of elec­tion hints from the PNM, re­peat­ed de­mands for elec­tion by the UNC and a short sharp cam­paign in the snap poll called by Young, four months ahead of the term’s end in Au­gust. Young had an­nounced the elec­tion date on March 18—a day af­ter he was ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter.

Row­ley said the PNM meets to­mor­row to de­ter­mine the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings (La Hor­quet­ta/ Tal­paro), par­ty PRO Faris Al-Rawi (San Fer­nan­do West), Ter­rence Deyals­ingh (Aranguez/St Joseph), Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis (To­ba­go West), Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy (To­ba­go East), Es­mond Forde (Tu­na­puna), and Roger Mon­roe (To­co/San­gre Grande) were among those PN­Mites who lost their seats.

The PNM is said to have re­tained the Diego Mar­tin, Port-of-Spain, Arou­ca/Lopinot and oth­er seats.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) is ex­pect­ed to give pre­lim­i­nary re­sults and vot­er turnout fig­ures lat­er to­day.

Yes­ter­day’s vot­ing fea­tured long lines in many of the 2,316 polling sta­tions. While some in­ner-city sta­tions had a slow be­gin­ning from 6 am, steady streams were re­port­ed. In the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, turnout was 58.08 per cent.

Kam­la open to Far­ley

Af­ter close of the poll at 6 pm, the UNC showed an ear­ly lead with fig­ures in cer­tain key mar­gin­als, as well as its tra­di­tion­al “safe seats,” start­ing with Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Siparia. She was the first can­di­date to de­clare vic­to­ry.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ar­rived at her UNC’s Siparia con­stituen­cy head­quar­ters around 8.45 pm to shouts of “Vic­to­ry tonight!” from en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers. Pre­lim­i­nary fig­ures for her win was 9,565 votes.

At that time, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was con­fi­dent the UNC would win the elec­tion, as the trend was very good for the UNC.

On whether the UNC would be open to an arrange­ment with the TPP, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I al­ways said there are many rooms in the House of the Ris­ing Sun, there’s a space and place for all. We need to work to­geth­er to re­build T&T so all are wel­come and all will be wel­come—we have to re­build T&T.”

Den­nis, Grif­fith con­cede ear­ly

First fig­ures fol­low­ing the close of polls be­gan de­vel­op­ing from around 8 pm with To­ba­go East, where the race emerged with TPP’s David Thomas ahead of PNM’s Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy.

Just af­ter 8 pm, fig­ures for mar­gin­al Tu­na­puna showed UNC’s Roger Alexan­der ahead of PNM’s Forde, main­tain­ing a lead.

The UNC was al­so lead­ing in mar­gin­al Aranguez/St Joseph with UNC De­vesh Ma­haraj over PNM’s Deyals­ingh.

By 8.30 pm, UNC’s Ch­agua­nas East can­di­date Van­dana Mo­hit showed a healthy lead over PNM’s Richie Sookhai. UNC’s Ma­yaro can­di­date Nicholas Mor­ris al­so showed a large lead over PNM’s Beat­rice Bridge­lal.

By 9.20 pm, UNC had called the seats of Ch­agua­nas West (Neil Col­in Go­sein), Oropouche West (Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe) and Barataria/San Juan (Sad­dam Ho­sein).

By 9.30 pm, the UNC was lead­ing in 13 seats, the PNM in five and TPP in To­ba­go East and West.

At that time, To­ba­go PNM Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis con­ced­ed that the PNM would not have won To­ba­go East, say­ing it was not his hap­pi­est elec­tion. Den­nis spec­u­lat­ed that vot­ers may have de­cid­ed to with­draw par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Al­so at that time, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance Gary Grif­fith con­ced­ed say­ing, “ The re­sults show that T&T was not pre­pared for a third op­tion, we just didn’t have the op­por­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to break away from that PNM or UNC—til they die mind­set. I hope who­ev­er is in Gov­ern­ment that you do well.”

It was a sub­dued at­mos­phere at PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain. A large stage was set up. But up to 9.15pm, MPs were in their con­stituen­cies and few par­ty of­fi­cials were present.

Can­di­dates need­ed to se­cure one-eighth of the votes cast to get back their de­posit.

KPB’s come­back

Prime Min­is­ter-elect Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­came T&T’s first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter in 2010 as head of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion.

In the 2025 elec­tion, she had sought a “come­back” like US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, on whose Re­pub­li­can cam­paign poli­cies the UNC had tak­en a page in terms of se­cu­ri­ty and il­le­gal mi­grants.

The UNC had waged a sharp savvy cam­paign based on its slo­gan “Yel­low is the Code—When UNC Wins Every­body Wins.”

The UNC had tar­get­ed “grass­roots” and work­ers via a Coali­tion of In­ter­ests from the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU, small­er par­ties PEP, COP and Laven­tille Out­reach for Ver­ti­cal En­rich­ment, al­so fea­tur­ing some for­mer PNM faces and a fleet of so­cial in­flu­encers, in­clud­ing en­ter­tain­ers.

Yes­ter­day’s ac­tiv­i­ty was spot­ted with is­sues on both sides, with the PNM al­leg­ing bribery by one per­son in Aranguez/St Joseph and oth­er con­cerns raised by the PNM in Moru­ga/Table­land re­gard­ing con­duct of cer­tain vot­ers.

The UNC al­so sent a se­ries of writ­ten com­plaints to the EBC through­out the day on 19 is­sues, rang­ing from elec­tion ma­te­r­i­al (ink, pen) to long lines and al­leged sus­pect bal­lots. (See page 10)

The elec­tion was con­duct­ed un­der the ob­ser­va­tion of teams from Cari­com and the Com­mon­wealth.