Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) par­ty or­gan­is­er Bar­ry Padarath be­lieves the par­ty has run its best gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign in re­cent his­to­ry be­cause they did not op­er­ate “UNC-ish” this time around.

Padarath said be­cause of this ap­proach, they do not an­tic­i­pate a “nail-bit­ing” fin­ish on Mon­day night and be­lieve a vic­tor will be de­clared ear­ly in the night.

Padarath said peo­ple have tak­en no­tice that the par­ty had tak­en a new strate­gic ap­proach to this elec­tion. Asked to elu­ci­date, he said, “We did not be­have very UNC-ish in this Gen­er­al Elec­tion (cam­paign). Every­body stayed on mes­sage, every­body stayed in their sec­tion, we weren’t trip­ping up on each oth­er, and the leader is the one who has re­al­ly been giv­ing the over­all pic­ture of how gov­er­nance will oc­cur un­der the coali­tion of in­ter­est.”

The term “UNC-ish” was made in jest by Padarath, as he ref­er­enced Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s farewell in­ter­view with the me­dia, when the then-prime min­is­ter was told his MPs op­er­at­ed like UNC mem­bers and ex­posed con­fi­den­tial mat­ters when they did not get their way in To­ba­go af­ter Stu­art Young was se­lect­ed to lead Gov­ern­ment.

Padarath, who is a main play­er in the par­ty’s elec­tion ap­pa­ra­tus, said the PNM may have been un­der the im­pres­sion that call­ing a snap elec­tion would have made the UNC seem un­pre­pared. How­ev­er, Padarath said they’ve been ready for al­most a year. It’s why he said me­dia book­ings were done since 2024.

“The PNM tried to give the im­pres­sion that the UNC was caught with its pants down. That was the fur­thest thing from the truth. We had our time to lis­ten, go out there, do pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions. So, we had a pulse of what was hap­pen­ing in the com­mu­ni­ties, what peo­ple want­ed to hear from us,” Padarath ex­plained.

He said they stuck to a plan and did not de­vi­ate from it.

“And as I keep say­ing in this cam­paign, peo­ple were more in­ter­est­ed in what im­pacts them in their pock­ets and what im­pacts them in their homes. So, crime and the econ­o­my have reached al­most every­body’s home in one way or the oth­er. And we were very cog­nisant of what our mes­sag­ing is, and there­fore we stayed on mes­sage.”

The Cou­va South can­di­date said Fer­oze Khan, who has spear­head­ed their elec­tion cam­paigns in the past, led them again un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s over­sight.

“There are just a few of us in the na­tion­al cam­paign team who have been man­ag­ing a very tight, crisp, well-put-to­geth­er Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign. There was just a core group of us that was man­ag­ing the team at a very tight lev­el to keep it dis­ci­plined in terms of our mes­sag­ing,” he said, say­ing they were run­ning on adren­a­line.

And while he said it may have ap­peared as if they were slow in an­nounc­ing can­di­dates, Padarath said that too was strate­gic.

“So, when Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar start­ed to talk about stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion and so on, and then you had peo­ple like Roger Alexan­der com­ing in who can speak on op­er­a­tions is­sues ... I’m not say­ing that he’s go­ing to be the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty should we win, but what I’m say­ing is Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar was very strate­gic in en­sur­ing that she had the right per­son­nel to fit the key ar­eas that need­ed to be ar­tic­u­lat­ed in terms of what is the UNC’s pol­i­cy and ad­vanc­ing the UNC pol­i­cy on these mat­ters,” he ex­plained.

He said he was very pleased with how the cam­paign was han­dled.

“Every step of the way, it was in­ten­tion­al in terms of how we did things, how we han­dled in­ter­nal mat­ters, and how we telegraphed to the pop­u­la­tion our mes­sag­ing, our choice of can­di­dates, en­sur­ing that this time around you re­al­ly had per­sons’ tal­ents aligned to the con­stituen­cy that they were go­ing to be field­ed in. But not on­ly that, telegraph­ing to the pop­u­la­tion as well, in terms of who your gov­ern­ment was go­ing to be.”

Padarath did not want to haz­ard a guess on how many seats the UNC will win but be­lieves it will not go down to the wire.

“I don’t think it will be a nail-bit­ing fin­ish be­cause the en­er­gy is so high across the coun­try. So, from the time you see the re­sults start­ing to come in and there is a trend, we will know which di­rec­tion it is go­ing, ob­vi­ous­ly, just as you will know which di­rec­tion it is go­ing. So, to say that we’re do­ing all of south and all of cen­tral and so on, no, we ex­pect that the re­sults will be good across the length and breadth of the coun­try,” Padarath said.

He an­tic­i­pat­ed a good turnout to­day for the par­ty’s fi­nal ral­ly at the Aranguez Sa­van­nah but said they are mind­ful that crowds do not win elec­tions.