Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/ Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

As Gen­er­al Elec­tion 2025 draws near­er, some of the so-called small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties say they are un­fazed and unim­pressed by Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany’s re­cent­ly pub­lished elec­tion poll.

Pro­fes­sor Ghany ad­min­is­tered 1,650 ques­tion­naires in Trinidad and 530 in To­ba­go across 11 mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies in Trinidad and the two in To­ba­go. Ghany ar­rived at the con­clu­sion that while the elec­tion is still too close to call, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has a slight lead in the mar­gin­al seats. Mean­while, he said “vote split­ting” in To­ba­go would ben­e­fit the in­cum­bent Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

But the Kezel Jack­son-led All Peo­ple’s Par­ty be­lieves the poll was dis­re­spect­ful to her par­ty, as the APP, which is field­ing eight can­di­dates this elec­tion, was lumped in­to a cat­e­go­ry called “oth­er” par­ties and was not a stand-alone op­tion such as the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) and the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA).

Jack­son said, “Peo­ple as­so­ciate us as if we have no iden­ti­ty.”

Jack­son added, “Hamid Ghany is a po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, but in terms of the new mar­ket and what is tak­ing place, he would not be see­ing that be­cause he is not con­nect­ed on the ground at that lev­el. So, he is go­ing from a the­o­ret­i­cal lev­el rather than a prac­ti­cal lev­el, as to what is tak­ing place with grass­roots peo­ple.”

She said the poll would not de­ter their mood lead­ing to April 28.

“I be­lieve this is a turn­ing of the tide for Trinidad and To­ba­go in terms of a po­lit­i­cal shift that is need­ed be­cause both a par­a­digm shift and po­lit­i­cal shift need to hap­pen na­tion­al­ly. It is the first time we’ve had so many po­lit­i­cal par­ties as­pir­ing for con­stituen­cies and lead­er­ship, and that points to a lev­el of dis­con­tent among the peo­ple, hence the rea­son for the rise of so many po­lit­i­cal par­ties,” she said.

Mean­while, PF leader Mick­ela Pan­day told Guardian Me­dia that she did not look at the poll be­cause she was too fo­cused on what was hap­pen­ing on the ground.

“When you are on the ground work­ing, some­body sit­ting down in an of­fice writ­ing a poll is not your pri­or­i­ty. Your pri­or­i­ty is to be out there, work and meet peo­ple. So, it does not af­fect us. I don’t even know how cor­rect polls are ei­ther. Peo­ple on the ground don’t have time for that, and to be truth­ful, I didn’t read it.”

The PF is field­ing 37 can­di­dates in this gen­er­al elec­tion, and Pan­day sought to as­sure the na­tion that her par­ty is not a flash in the pan.

“We have cre­at­ed his­to­ry al­ready, get­ting can­di­dates to come for­ward and to step in­to a very bit­ter, dirty, mud­sling­ing are­na; to just do that, I feel proud. It is ex­cit­ing, and what­ev­er hap­pens on the 28th, one thing we are sure is the 29th will come, and the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front will be there, and we are here to stay,” Pan­day said.

The PF leader said she was al­so proud of their cam­paign.

“We stuck to the is­sues, and we could not even be­gin to com­pete fi­nan­cial­ly, but we spoke about is­sues; we were not mud­sling­ing; no­body was fight­ing peo­ple on the streets or a face-off of mu­sic trucks, and at the end, that is what mat­ters. And we nev­er had to talk about any­body’s fam­i­ly or per­son­al is­sues.”

In To­ba­go, the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) said polling on the is­land was tra­di­tion­al­ly prob­lem­at­ic.

“Many To­bag­o­ni­ans on the ground feel that all poll­sters be­long to the PNM, and there­fore they are not like­ly to give ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly if they plan to not sup­port the PNM. So, the TPP con­tin­ues to work on the ground with our can­di­dates and to en­sure our elec­tion day ma­chin­ery is well oiled so we can ac­tu­al­ly bring peo­ple out to the polls and ac­tu­al­ly win the To­ba­go East and West seats,” said Deputy Leader Faith Breb­nor.

Back in Trinidad, the Trinidad Hu­man­i­ty Cam­paign (THC) ques­tioned the sam­ple size of the poll, but its po­lit­i­cal leader, Mar­cus Ramkissoon, said their non-in­clu­sion would not de­ter their spir­it.

“I would say that we feel pret­ty con­fi­dent with­in our­selves and con­tent more than any­thing be­cause in the last five years, we have got­ten so many of our poli­cies across that have brought so many ben­e­fits for the pop­u­la­tion. That cannabis pol­i­cy brought an 80 per cent re­duc­tion in the mag­is­trate’s court cas­es, 75 per cent in ef­fi­cien­cy in the foren­sic de­part­ment, all the love­ly points Faris (Al-Rawi) came out and said in 2019 that I wrote for him, it was achieved. So, we achieved a man­i­festo promise with­out ever be­ing elect­ed.”

The NTA’s Gary Grif­fith had pre­vi­ous­ly ques­tioned the ac­cu­ra­cy of the poll. Asked about his par­ty’s readi­ness yes­ter­day in spite of what was pub­lished by Ghany, Grif­fith said no­body knows what will play off on April 28.

“What I think is, it is im­por­tant that there must be a voice of a third par­ty in this coun­try. We do know that there are 150,000-plus per­sons who are not PNM or UNC un­til they die, and some­times they just need that op­tion. It is im­por­tant we pro­vide that fa­cil­i­ty. What I am very dis­ap­point­ed about is that one par­ty be­lieves that if you are not sup­port­ive of the PNM, you must au­to­mat­i­cal­ly bow and be un­der the um­brel­la of the UNC, and that has al­ways been the prob­lem.”