Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

With less than three weeks to go be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion, the coun­try’s two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties—the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)—are ac­cus­ing each oth­er of mis­us­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in their cam­paigns to ped­dle racism, lies, and pro­pa­gan­da.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with re­porters at the hand­ing over cer­e­mo­ny for the $34 mil­lion San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Cen­tre at King Wharf, Young dou­bled down on claims by Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi that the UNC is spend­ing $1.5 mil­lion to buy votes in the San Fer­nan­do West Con­stituen­cy. Al-Rawi made the al­le­ga­tion af­ter fil­ing his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers for that seat on Fri­day. Young said Al-Rawi was be­ing “con­ser­v­a­tive”.

Young: So­cial me­dia in­flu­encers be­ing paid $40,000

Young claimed the UNC was al­so buy­ing votes in oth­er con­stituen­cies such as La Hor­quet­ta, Tal­paro, and San­gre Grande, and pay­ing so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers $40,000 to ped­dle their mes­sages.

He added, “We ac­tu­al­ly al­so have foren­sic ev­i­dence of UNC us­age and their agents’ us­age of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and the cre­ation of (chat)bots and the use of this, un­for­tu­nate­ly in a racist man­ner, to try and start up fake pro­files to go on gov­ern­ment sites and gov­ern­ment pages as well as some of our pages to put these false com­ments.”

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­demned the al­le­ga­tions and ac­cused Young of re­sort­ing to gut­ter pol­i­tics. In­stead, she said, the PNM were the ones who had so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers on their pay­roll and were us­ing “ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence to man­u­fac­ture lies, dis­tort re­al­i­ty, and spread pro­pa­gan­da in a des­per­ate at­tempt to hold on to pow­er.”

Dis­tanc­ing her par­ty from a racial video clip on so­cial me­dia, Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sured that the UNC is push­ing a clean cam­paign, fo­cused on plans and poli­cies.

Urg­ing the pop­u­la­tion not to be fooled by the PNM, she charged, “Stu­art Young was im­posed on this na­tion. He was not cho­sen by the peo­ple. And now, gid­dy with greed and pow­er, he’s cling­ing to his po­si­tion with the help of lies, AI-gen­er­at­ed filth, and a cam­paign de­signed to di­vide and dis­tract.”

Re­spond­ing to claims by Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day that four of her prospec­tive can­di­dates pulled out of the elec­tion race be­cause of in­tim­i­da­tion tac­tics by the UNC and PNM, he said he was not aware of that, but "I can guar­an­tee that the PNM does not en­gage in that type of be­hav­iour, so there will be ab­solute­ly no sub­stan­ti­a­tion of that."

Ethics coun­cil vows

to mon­i­tor elec­tion

Mean­while, Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, chair­man of the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour, said they have not re­ceived any of­fi­cial com­plaints from the PNM. He said if they do, and there is ev­i­dence, they will treat with it ac­cord­ing­ly.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, he stat­ed the coun­cil will im­me­di­ate­ly start its mon­i­tor­ing ac­tiv­i­ties to en­sure ad­her­ence to the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct.

All po­lit­i­cal par­ties, can­di­dates and sup­port­ers are en­cour­aged “to par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion cam­paign in a man­ner that up­holds the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral process by main­tain­ing the high­est moral prin­ci­ples and eth­i­cal stan­dards.”

Com­plaints can be made through a mes­sage to What­sApp 793-4505 or via email to in­fo@po­lit­i­calethic­stt.org