The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing a safe and se­cure en­vi­ron­ment as the na­tion ap­proach­es the Gen­er­al Elec­tion. Over the past month, the TTPS has been ac­tive­ly up­dat­ing the pub­lic on its readi­ness to main­tain peace and safe­guard the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process dur­ing this crit­i­cal pe­ri­od.

Speak­ing ear­li­er this week, Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin dis­closed that in­tel­li­gence had been re­ceived sug­gest­ing at­tempts to in­flu­ence vot­er turnout through acts of vot­er sup­pres­sion. The ac­tiv­i­ties un­der scruti­ny in­clude of­fer­ing in­duce­ments to sway vot­er choice, as well as the use of in­tim­i­da­tion and threats aimed at dis­cour­ag­ing or ma­nip­u­lat­ing vot­ers. Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, both strate­gies were ac­tive­ly be­ing con­sid­ered by cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als.

Act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon, who serves as Gold Com­man­der for the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, not­ed that the pub­lic dis­clo­sure of this in­tel­li­gence had a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact. “On­go­ing mon­i­tor­ing via so­cial me­dia sur­veil­lance and hu­man in­tel­li­gence net­works has in­di­cat­ed a no­tice­able re­duc­tion in re­lat­ed rhetoric,” Si­mon stat­ed. De­spite this de­cline, he em­pha­sised that the TTPS con­tin­ues to ex­e­cute in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven op­er­a­tions, util­is­ing ex­per­tise re­fined dur­ing re­cent States of Emer­gency.

Si­mon al­so urged mem­bers of the pub­lic who may have been sub­ject­ed to acts of vot­er sup­pres­sion to re­port these in­ci­dents im­me­di­ate­ly to the po­lice.

As po­lit­i­cal par­ties pre­pare to host a se­ries of ral­lies and mo­tor­cades across Trinidad to­day, and sim­i­lar ac­tiv­i­ties are sched­uled in To­ba­go to­mor­row, the TTPS has en­cour­aged all par­ties and their sup­port­ers to en­gage ful­ly and re­spect­ful­ly in these de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ex­er­cis­es. Cit­i­zens have been urged to show their sup­port for their cho­sen par­ties and can­di­dates while ad­her­ing to the prin­ci­ples of peace, mu­tu­al re­spect, and law­ful con­duct.

The TTPS, with sup­port from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, will main­tain a ro­bust and high­ly vis­i­ble pres­ence to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of all elec­tion-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties.

The Po­lice Ser­vice ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the pub­lic for its on­go­ing co­op­er­a­tion and part­ner­ship, un­der­scor­ing the shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to up­hold peace, or­der, and democ­ra­cy through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go.