Two days be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young urged cit­i­zens to be cau­tious as he ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) of of­fer­ing mon­ey to cit­i­zens in ex­change for void­ing their votes.

He claimed this was a form of vot­er sup­pres­sion be­ing used by the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar par­ty.

Speak­ing in San­gre Grande on Thurs­day night, Young al­so pre­sent­ed a video of UNC sup­port­ers putting a UNC T-shirt on an el­der­ly woman who was al­ready wear­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) T-shirt.

Young said he re­ceived re­ports of UNC agents mov­ing across Trinidad, and pos­si­bly To­ba­go, with red ink re­sem­bling that used in elec­tions to sig­ni­fy that a per­son has al­ready vot­ed.

“If you dip your fin­ger in the ink, they will pay you mon­ey. Of course, if you dip your fin­ger in the ink, it means you can­not vote. Tonight, I am cau­tion­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, that this is crim­i­nal be­hav­iour and, that these are crim­i­nal of­fences. Do not let the agents of the UNC take away your right to vote,” Young urged.

Young al­so showed a video al­leged­ly high­light­ing UNC in­tim­i­da­tion tac­tics against a San­gre Grande res­i­dent known by PNM To­co/San­gre Grande can­di­date Roger Munro as Ms Ber­nice.

The video showed the el­der­ly woman stand­ing in a yard, in­ter­act­ing with three in­di­vid­u­als wear­ing yel­low and blue UNC T-shirts. One mem­ber is heard shout­ing, “Bring a UNC jer­sey for tan­ty.” An­oth­er woman holds the woman’s hand as the in­flu­encer puts the UNC jer­sey on Ms Ber­nice and shouts, “Stu­art Young, watch that. Yel­low is the code. You eh touch­ing tan­ty pen­sion at all, we com­ing for you.”

Young re­called that dur­ing a cam­paign walk with Munro, the same in­flu­encer—whom he claimed was paid by the UNC—had been the on­ly per­son to re­act neg­a­tive­ly.

He in­sist­ed this was not an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent, adding that he had re­ceived sim­i­lar com­plaints from cit­i­zens in Moru­ga, St Joseph, San Fer­nan­do West, and Tu­na­puna.

Lam­bast­ing the UNC’s cam­paign, Young warned elec­tors about mis­in­for­ma­tion, al­leg­ing that the par­ty was flood­ing so­cial me­dia with edit­ed videos from PNM meet­ings con­tain­ing lies. He claimed the UNC ma­nip­u­lat­ed Laven­tille West can­di­date Ka­reem Mar­celle’s speech, and af­ter he ex­posed the UNC’s al­leged dol­lar de­val­u­a­tion plan in San Fer­nan­do, the par­ty failed to of­fer an al­ter­na­tive. In­stead, it used his warn­ing to Cepep, URP, and oth­er work­ers to fab­ri­cate a video sug­gest­ing he in­tend­ed to fire them.

He claimed such tac­tics demon­strat­ed, what he said was the UNC’s com­fort with dis­hon­esty.

Yes­ter­day, UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and can­di­date for Oropouche East Dr Roodal Mooni­lal dis­missed Young’s claims.

In a What­sApp mes­sage, Mooni­lal said, “Stu­art Young is try­ing to ex­plained his im­pend­ing de­feat. The PNM’s poli­cies and their cor­rup­tion are sup­press­ing their vote.”

He added, “Clear­ly, they have con­ced­ed. It’s scare tac­tics.”