KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.com

De­spite Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s as­sur­ance that both in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al elec­tion ob­servers will be present for the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) says, as far as it is aware, on­ly Cari­com ob­servers have com­mit­ted to com­ing thus far.

Fol­low­ing a meet­ing be­tween the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) and sev­er­al UNC mem­bers yes­ter­day, the UNC’s Barataria/San Juan can­di­date, Sad­dam Ho­sein, said the Op­po­si­tion con­tin­ues to be deeply con­cerned and dis­sat­is­fied that with on­ly three weeks un­til the elec­tion, there’s been no con­fir­ma­tion from Gov­ern­ment that in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers would be present on April 28.

Ho­sein told Guardian Me­dia his par­ty con­tin­ues to be con­cerned about the in­tegri­ty of Cari­com ob­servers, since the wife of for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour is Cari­com’s as­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary.

Ho­sein said, “As at to­day, we are un­sure and the EBC is al­so un­sure, based on their con­ver­sa­tions with us this morn­ing, when those par­tic­u­lar mis­sions, be it Cari­com, the Carter Cen­ter or the Com­mon­wealth, will be in Trinidad and To­ba­go for the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion and we are just three weeks shy from this very ma­jor po­lit­i­cal event in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are deeply con­cerned about this mat­ter and we do hope, in fact, that the Com­mon­wealth ob­servers and the Carter Cen­ter ob­servers do come and ob­serve the elec­tion 2025 be­cause we have had is­sues in the past with re­spect to the con­duct of elec­tions.”

In a re­lease on the mat­ter yes­ter­day, UNC added, “This is un­ac­cept­able. Elec­tion ob­ser­va­tion by im­par­tial in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies is a stan­dard de­mo­c­ra­t­ic safe­guard, es­pe­cial­ly in a con­text where pub­lic con­fi­dence in the elec­toral process must be pro­tect­ed and up­held. The UNC will pur­sue this mat­ter ur­gent­ly, in­clud­ing di­rect en­gage­ment with in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies and diplo­mat­ic mis­sions if nec­es­sary. Trinidad and To­ba­go must not hold an elec­tion with­out in­de­pen­dent in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to Young, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne and PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings for con­fir­ma­tion of the date of ar­rival of the ob­servers but re­ceived no re­sponse from ei­ther of them up to press time.