Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has raised con­cern about the sus­pect­ed align­ment of op­pos­ing par­ty sup­port­ers with crim­i­nals in an ef­fort to ad­vance their cause in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Speak­ing with re­porters yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a tour of the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, on its one-year an­niver­sary of op­er­a­tion, Young was asked about the tone of the elec­tion cam­paign and whether he had any con­cerns.

While he ap­plaud­ed the con­duct of sup­port­ers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) through­out the po­lit­i­cal process, he ex­pressed con­cerns about the pos­si­ble threats posed by op­pos­ing par­ty sup­port­ers.

“There are some very un­savoury el­e­ments and some very un­savoury things tak­ing place. In fact right here in To­co/San­gre Grande, from what I’ve been hear­ing about the po­ten­tial en­gage­ment by oth­er par­ties with the crim­i­nal el­e­ments, that is not some­thing I con­done, that is some­thing to be con­demned,” he said. 

The Prime Min­is­ter ex­plained that PNM sup­port­ers main­tained what he de­scribed as “high stan­dards.”

“I can on­ly speak to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment has al­ways op­er­at­ed at a high­er stan­dard and with a dif­fer­ent lev­el of in­tegri­ty and I am pleased,” he added.

Ear­li­er this week, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin re­vealed charges were laid against one per­son for in­cit­ing po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence on­line, while in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to oth­ers have been launched as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) as­sert­ed it was tak­ing a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to threats made in the run-up to the April 28th Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Ben­jamin con­demned the use of on­line plat­forms to pro­mote or in­cite vi­o­lence, whether di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, against sup­port­ers of op­pos­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day told Guardian Me­dia that in­tim­i­da­tion to­wards par­ty mem­bers and sup­port­ers had in­creased but did not con­firm if the threats in­clud­ed ones made via so­cial me­dia.

“Since nom­i­na­tion day the threats and in­tim­i­da­tion tac­tics have in­ten­si­fied. Yes, po­lice re­ports have been made in the most se­vere cas­es,” Pan­day said.

Ear­li­er this week, sabo­teurs al­leged­ly van­dalised the ban­ners and posters of the PNM and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­dates for the mar­gin­al Moru­ga/Table­land seat.

The UNC’s can­di­date Michelle Ben­jamin called for a clean cam­paign, while the PNM’s can­di­date, Lisa At­wa­ter con­demned the be­hav­iour and called for all po­lit­i­cal ma­te­r­i­al o be re­spect­ed. 

PNM can­di­date for Cu­mu­to/ Man­zanil­la San­jiv Bood­hu al­so con­demned re­cent al­leged clash­es on the cam­paign trail. While speak­ing on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form, Bood­hu con­demned the mem­bers of the UNC, whom he ac­cused of hurl­ing in­sults at PNM sup­port­ers.