As Trinidad and To­ba­go inch­es clos­er to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the con­stituen­cy of Tu­na­puna, wedged be­tween ur­ban sprawl and rur­al tra­di­tions, emerges as a fo­cal point for the po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

His­tor­i­cal­ly recog­nised as a mar­gin­al seat, the over 27,000 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers of Tu­na­puna have of­ten played a piv­otal role in de­ter­min­ing the na­tion’s gov­ern­ing par­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), in 2020, Es­mond Forde re­tained the seat for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) by se­cur­ing near­ly 2000 more votes than the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) can­di­date back then David Nakhid.

But while the UNC tast­ed de­feat, it was not all bit­ter, as the par­ty man­aged to close the gap from the pre­vi­ous elec­tion fol­low­ing a re­count, adding to the area’s elec­toral un­pre­dictabil­i­ty. In 2020, the PNM's mar­gin of vic­to­ry was 1,926, com­pared to 3,615 in 2015.

For his en­tire life, Ains­ley Headley has looked on as politi­cians pound the pave­ment ahead of the elec­tions, each echo­ing promis­es of bet­ter­ment. But not many, ac­cord­ing to him, have been able to de­liv­er tan­gi­ble re­sults.

“To be hon­est, it might go back the same way un­less who­ev­er the con­test­ing par­ties are, can bring some­one to off­set, as you say it is a mar­gin­al seat, Es­mond Forde, well then that could be it for him, yes.” Headley ex­plained that he has known Forde per­son­al­ly through­out the years and in­di­cat­ed that the in­cum­bent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment has done his best, de­spite what some may ar­gue, dur­ing his tenure.

Forde, who is Tu­na­puna born and bred, has been serv­ing as Tu­na­puna’s MP since 2015. He has been a mem­ber of the ex­ec­u­tive of the Tu­na­puna Con­stituen­cy and an ac­tive mem­ber of the PNM par­ty group in his area for sev­er­al years. He al­so pre­vi­ous­ly served as a coun­cil­lor for the Au­zonville/Tu­na­puna dis­trict.

Pol­i­tics in the con­stituen­cy has al­so caught the keen eyes of be­hav­iour­al poll­ster Mwale Hen­ry, who told Guardian Me­dia that the race may be tighter than be­fore.

“Since 2015, Es­mond Forde, the PNM’s flag bear­er has fend­ed off op­po­si­tion chal­lenges but this mar­gin has shrunk by 15.75 per cent over the past two elec­tion cy­cles. If that trend holds, Es­mond Forde, or who­ev­er wins, their vic­to­ry in 2025 could be ra­zor thin. We’re talk­ing about around 500 votes. So Tu­na­puna isn’t just a mar­gin­al but, ac­cord­ing to the num­bers, it is the mar­gin­al of all mar­gin­als.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed, how­ev­er, does not view the con­stituen­cy as be­ing the sole de­cid­ing fac­tor for the out­come of the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. He ad­mit­ted that the seat could eas­i­ly switch from par­ty to par­ty.

“Giv­en Tu­na­puna has flipped - in 2010 it flipped - in the years be­fore it flipped out of the PNM to the UNC, back to the (Peo­ple's) Part­ner­ship, to the PNM. It is a seat to look at, it is one that can be cap­tured but it won’t de­cide the elec­tion com­plete­ly.”

Mo­hammed al­so shared his per­spec­tive on the UNC’s sur­prise an­nounce­ment that for­mer se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der will do bat­tle on the par­ty’s be­half for the seat and whether it will come down to a pop­u­lar­i­ty bat­tle.

“Forde is quite pop­u­lar, hav­ing served two terms as MP the is­sue here is he served as Deputy Speak­er of the House, serv­ing out­side of the Cab­i­net has some dis­ad­van­tages to it with re­gards to goods and ser­vices that come from gov­ern­ment if you sit in the Cab­i­net. With the UNC an­nounc­ing Roger Alexan­der, one, he is a na­tion­al per­son­al­i­ty; two, he is seen as some­one who can deal with the crime sit­u­a­tion in Tu­na­puna, there are gangs and crime in the area. The con­stituen­cy will need some­one who is twice as hands-on than Es­mond Forde to wres­tle the seat from the PNM. Is it im­pos­si­ble? No.”

A mi­cro­cosm of the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal and so­cial com­plex­i­ties, 36 polling di­vi­sions stretch across the bustling East­ern Main Road. Tu­na­puna is an area blend­ing mid­dle-class pro­fes­sion­als, work­ing-class com­mu­ni­ties and, ac­cord­ing to Hen­ry, a unique elec­torate.

“Tu­na­puna is one of the most eth­ni­cal­ly di­verse re­gions in the coun­try. You’re talk­ing around 31.6% of Afro-Trinida­di­ans, 27% In­do-Trinida­di­ans and you have a large chunk of 26% who are iden­ti­fied as mixed her­itage. De­mo­graph­i­cal­ly, Afro-Trinida­di­ans from the Tacarigua and El Do­ra­do area will lean PNM, where­as In­do-Trinida­di­ans from Ma­coya and St Au­gus­tine tilt UNC with a surg­ing youth base near the uni­ver­si­ty cen­tres and with new vot­ers this con­stituen­cy can de­fy tra­di­tions.”

Crime wor­ries res­i­dents the most

Those in the area shared with Guardian Me­dia their con­cerns about what has been blot­ting their beau­ti­ful con­stituen­cy.

Ac­cord­ing to Steve Braith­waite, “A lack of jobs, their liveli­hoods and in these ar­eas they are see­ing that they not get­ting prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

Oth­ers such as Gary Handy and Na­tal­ie Punter-Adams rank safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty among their ma­jor ar­eas of con­cern.

“I can’t speak for every­body but I think it’s crime and I think the ma­jor is­sue for me is crime.

“I have a re­al con­cern with all the gun shootouts, you com­ing and see­ing the po­lice part off and you have to pass around. The vi­o­lence that is def­i­nite­ly one of the sore points, oth­er than the road need fix­ing, the in­fra­struc­ture.”

Res­i­dents al­so ex­pressed fear of the al­leged op­er­a­tion of sev­er­al ma­jor gangs in the area. Mem­ber of

But crime is not the on­ly is­sue weigh­ing on con­stituents' minds.

Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce di­rec­tor Vinai Char­ran voiced his con­cerns and out­lined his ex­pec­ta­tions for who­ev­er is elect­ed as the con­stituen­cy’s next mem­ber of par­lia­ment.

“As a busi­ness own­er what we need is sta­bil­i­ty, we need greater ac­cess to forex (for­eign ex­change) but I know that un­less we get the re­fin­ery back open, get a rea­son­able sup­ply of gas from wher­ev­er, that is go­ing to be a chal­lenge. We al­so have the chal­lenge of the US pol­i­tics that will af­fect our re­gion, so who­ev­er comes in, they are go­ing to have to be able to nav­i­gate that, with deal­ing with the US, with deal­ing with the UK and the visa re­stric­tions, who­ev­er comes in must get us back to where we were pri­or.”

The PNM’s Forde has al­ready start­ed can­vass­ing the area in an ef­fort to de­fend his rep­re­sen­ta­tive sta­tus, how­ev­er, the in­tro­duc­tion of can­di­dates from the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) as well as the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front in­to the elec­toral gayelle must al­so be fac­tored in­to the elec­tion out­come.

The NTA’s Savi­ta Pierre said the par­ty should not be tak­en light­ly.

“I be­lieve we do have an ex­cel­lent chance, rea­son be­ing I have been on the ground since last year and the sen­ti­ments of my res­i­dents is that they have not seen their rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the last ten years and al­so on the next side in terms of the op­po­si­tion. We are ac­cus­tomed with elec­tion in Trinidad where, dur­ing elec­tion time, we get our road paved and every­thing be­ing done and pri­or to that, noth­ing is be­ing done.”

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front’s, Alek­sei Hen­ry, said that third par­ties can dis­rupt vot­ing pat­terns and lead to a shock out­come.

“Nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate a sleep­ing gi­ant. What we in­tend to do will ben­e­fit the en­tire pop­u­la­tion at large and I don’t look at it as a small par­ty, big par­ty thing. We have to re­main fo­cused on what we have to do.” Tu­na­puna’s sta­tus as a mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy po­si­tions it as a crit­i­cal bat­tle­ground and ac­cord­ing to the UNC’s can­di­date Roger Alexan­der, his sights for de­vel­op­ment stretch be­yond the area’s bor­ders.

“Let me be hon­est, I don’t want the fo­cus to be on Tu­na­puna. I want the fo­cus to be on Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause I don’t want per­sons say, 'I vot­ing for Alexan­der'. You vote be­cause you want change, you vote be­cause you can see a bet­ter day. Peo­ple have com­plained that they have not re­ceived the type of ser­vice in 10 years that they look for­ward to. What can I of­fer? Pro­tec­tion for cit­i­zens through li­ais­ing with all au­thor­i­ties and agen­cies and put mech­a­nisms to make this con­stituen­cy safe.”

Mwale Hen­ry al­so con­tend­ed that swing vot­ers can ul­ti­mate­ly be the de­cid­ing fac­tor for the seat of Tu­na­puna.

“Un­de­cid­ed does not mean un­com­mit­ted, they are just un­con­vinced so they are watch­ing and wait­ing to see how the race un­folds be­cause we have a snap elec­tion. It’s go­ing to de­mand fast trust and trust is built with fa­mil­iar­i­ty. So in places like Tu­na­puna, where every vote counts, un­de­cid­ed vot­ers pick peo­ple not just par­ties.”