KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The count­down is on for the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, and while many peo­ple are prepar­ing them­selves to head to the polls, many young peo­ple say they are ap­a­thet­ic to­wards vot­ing.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to sev­er­al young peo­ple ages 19 to 35, and while some said they would be vot­ing, most young peo­ple said they did not plan to ex­er­cise their con­sti­tu­tion­al right this year be­cause they did not think their vote would make a dif­fer­ence.

To win their vote, some young peo­ple said, a po­lit­i­cal par­ty would have to of­fer young peo­ple a seat at the ta­ble, more job se­cu­ri­ty in­stead of short-term con­tract jobs for de­gree hold­ers, a ma­jor re­duc­tion in crime, as well as a work-from-home pol­i­cy.

Dif­fer­ing opin­ions on if their choice mat­ters

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, 25-year-old Aaron Ques­tel said he was hop­ing young peo­ple vote this year so they could cre­ate change.

Ques­tel said, “I think for the most part peo­ple are in­ter­est­ed in mak­ing a change. Hope­ful­ly, a lot of peo­ple come out and make their voic­es be heard this year.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, 27-year-old San Juan res­i­dent La­toya Hamil­ton said, “Yes, I al­ways vote. I think it’s nec­es­sary for young peo­ple to vote. As much as they think it isn’t, it is. It makes a dif­fer­ence.”

Stu­dent Adil Dat­too, 26, un­der­stands the sig­nif­i­cance of the process, say­ing, "Vot­ing is an im­por­tant right that I am ho­n­oured to en­joy as a cit­i­zen, but un­for­tu­nate­ly this has been ren­dered mean­ing­less by the cy­cle of poor lead­er­ship and poor choic­es for lead­er­ship that have plagued the coun­try through­out its his­to­ry. Be­cause the lead­ers and prospec­tive lead­ers have all bla­tant­ly wast­ed the pub­lic's time and re­sources, I feel no de­sire to cast my vote."

And 24-year-old Pre­cious Hinds said, “I am in­ter­est­ed, but I find it should have a par­ty that has more young peo­ple in­volved that’s not so in­clined to the racial bi­as­es that we have right now in Trinidad and To­ba­go with the two main par­ties that we have. I feel like I might be in­clined to vote de­pend­ing on what are the par­ties’ plans and what they have to of­fer young peo­ple. We are look­ing for more job se­cu­ri­ty.”

At­tor­ney Wes­ley Ram­nar­ine, 27, ex­plained, "I will be vot­ing and I think that young peo­ple should al­so vote. Why? We as young peo­ple do have the right to vote. It will be us ex­er­cis­ing our con­sti­tu­tion­al right and our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right to have a voice. I would say 

that if you as a young per­son you are con­cerned about job se­cu­ri­ty, hav­ing fin­ished uni­ver­si­ty or have friends fin­ish­ing uni­ver­si­ty, you will want to vote to en­sure you have jobs. If you have par­ents, if you have grand­par­ents who are in need of health­care, then you will vote and you would say where that mon­ey is go­ing."

He added, "If you cur­rent­ly have job and if you are pay­ing tax­es, you will be con­cerned with how your tax mon­ey is be­ing used. In essence, if you want to have a say in your fu­ture then you will use your voice to vote right now." 

Civ­il en­gi­neer Ud­dha­va Ma­haraj, 26, point­ed out, "Vot­ing is a crit­i­cal part of our democ­ra­cy, al­low­ing us to have a say in shap­ing the di­rec­tion of our gov­ern­ment and so­ci­ety. Present­ly, it’s the main way to ex­press our val­ues, pri­or­i­ties, and be­liefs on is­sues that af­fect­ing our dai­ly lives in any sig­nif­i­cance. 

"As such, I will be ex­er­cis­ing my de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right. As a young adult, my choice of can­di­date will be based on op­por­tu­ni­ties, stan­dards of liv­ing, crime and safe­ty, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment & gen­er­al progress of the coun­try as a whole."

Twen­ty-five-year-old stu­dent af­fairs of­fi­cer Leah-Marie Ram­dass is al­so en­cour­ag­ing the youth to vote.

"I ac­tu­al­ly nev­er gave vot­ing any mind. I nev­er paid any at­ten­tion. Grow­ing up, you would al­ways hear your par­ents or the old­er per­sons are go­ing to vote but be­cause I wasn't of age, I nev­er re­al­ly gave it mind. But I am a young in­di­vid­ual now, and I do have the op­tion to vote. I do plan to vote, be­cause at the end of the day, I think vot­ing is our voice, it's our right, and it's our chance to speak up for the things that we not on­ly want, but we hope to see."

She added, "I think young peo­ple should vote, be­cause, at the end of the day, we have the right, we have the choice to vote. And, with our votes, when we come to­geth­er, we can make a dif­fer­ence, re­gard­less of if you think it's not go­ing to make a dif­fer­ence. I think if we don't, we let oth­er per­sons choose for us. And, at the end of the day, if you're not fight­ing for you and your fu­ture, who's go­ing to do it?"

It is a view sole trad­er Dariel Tra­boulay, 27, al­so holds.

"At the end of the day, we nev­er know what is to come, so we must use the pow­er that we have in our hands as cit­i­zens. As young peo­ple, we can make a dif­fer­ence and con­trol some­thing just by that one par­tic­u­lar vote, be­cause it just takes one to make a change.

"Let's say like if some­body said they lost by one, and they just need­ed one vote, and let's say that we were one of them who sup­port­ed them, but we didn't take the chance when we had it. We can't com­plain at the end of it all, be­cause we did not con­tribute to try­ing to make a bet­ter so­ci­ety."

He added, "I have al­ways vot­ed ever since I was el­i­gi­ble in terms of vot­ing. My par­ents have al­ways en­cour­aged me to go out there. One can make a dif­fer­ence, and to show that we love our coun­try, to show re­spect for whomev­er we vote for by putting in our votes there. There shouldn't be any rea­son at all for young peo­ple not to vote. It's just mind games that peo­ple try to play up­on re­al­ly young peo­ple."

Mean­while, 19-year-old Mor­vant res­i­dent Ren­isha Burke said, “I am not in­ter­est­ed in vot­ing be­cause, hon­est­ly, I don’t think it will make a dif­fer­ence. I don’t think my vote will count. Hon­est­ly, I don’t think a lot of young peo­ple will be vot­ing ei­ther be­cause we have dif­fer­ent views on things, and with the way things are go­ing now, it’s not like any­one is mak­ing a dif­fer­ence or mak­ing any changes. There are still wa­ter is­sues. The roads are still dis­gust­ing and mashed up. Every­one is still cor­rupt­ed.”

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, 20-year-old stu­dent Kee­gan Bar­ring­ton told Guardian Me­dia that this would be the first time he’s el­i­gi­ble to vote, but he’s sim­ply not in­ter­est­ed in head­ing to the polls be­cause he doesn’t see the im­por­tance of it.

Bar­ring­ton said, “I’m not that in­ter­est­ed in the elec­tions. I nev­er re­al­ly saw my­self go­ing out there to vote. Even if I vote, I don’t know why I would be vot­ing. Not a lot of peo­ple ex­plain why you should vote or the ben­e­fits of vot­ing, so I just wouldn’t do it.”

Stu­dent An­dre Pachico, 22, be­lieves the pub­lic must al­so do its part in the process to seek out the nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion to make the right choic­es.

"At times there may not be a par­tic­u­lar par­ty that checks all the box­es, how­ev­er, we must ed­u­cate our­selves and make an in­formed de­ci­sion based on where our morale val­ues and stan­dards align most, this is why I will be vot­ing this year and en­cour­age younger peo­ple to ex­er­cise their right.

Youths find vot­ing not “at­trac­tive”

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to sev­er­al young peo­ple in ac­tive pol­i­tics who said while they un­der­stand the im­por­tance of vot­ing, many young peo­ple do not find it at­trac­tive.

Pro­gres­sive Par­ty leader Nikoli Ed­wards said young peo­ple need to know their voic­es are be­ing heard.

They are al­so con­cerned about high crime and no op­por­tu­ni­ties for jobs, es­pe­cial­ly non-tra­di­tion­al jobs.

Ed­wards said, “We need to cre­ate a path­way for young peo­ple to be en­gaged be­cause there’s no po­lit­i­cal par­ty that’s en­gag­ing with young peo­ple where you have open fo­rums for the gen­er­al pub­lic. We need to get feed­back from in­di­vid­u­als, so young peo­ple need to feel em­pow­ered, that their voic­es are be­ing heard and tak­en on board. It shouldn’t just be in an elec­tion sea­son but through­out the year. You need to have these town hall meet­ings or con­stituen­cy car­a­vans to not on­ly hear the is­sues and con­cerns of young peo­ple but al­so bring ser­vices in­to com­mu­ni­ties as far as is prac­ti­ca­ble."

He added, "We’ve seen those kinds of meth­ods work over the years, and for some rea­son or the oth­er, those kinds of ap­proach­es fall off. Many young peo­ple feel as though there’s this dis­en­gage­ment. We have not had a Na­tion­al Youth Coun­cil since about 2011 or so. We’ve had min­is­ter af­ter min­is­ter promise that this is some­thing that is go­ing to be brought back, and yet we have not had a Na­tion­al Youth Coun­cil, so how are we se­ri­ous about pri­ori­tis­ing youth is­sues when we don’t have an in­sti­tut­ed body that is there to be the voice on be­half of young peo­ple? We have to have a body that is there to rep­re­sent young peo­ple and even pos­si­bly have a say in the Par­lia­ment. Un­til a gov­ern­ment can de­liv­er some­thing like that, I think young peo­ple are go­ing to con­tin­ue to be feel­ing as though they are left out.”

He not­ed, how­ev­er, “It’s a case of it’s not at­trac­tive enough to come to the polls. Young peo­ple are of the view that come what may, we still have to wake up the day af­ter the elec­tions and go on with our lives. They don’t see an in­crease in the amount of mon­ey in their bank ac­count. They don’t hear about prices be­ing more af­ford­able in this coun­try, so it’s like, why go through all this ef­fort when it’s pret­ty much go­ing to be the same over and over? And these are the con­ver­sa­tions that, for sure, young peo­ple are hav­ing.”  

Mo­ti­va­tion lost af­ter failed promis­es

Sim­i­lar­ly, Pa­tri­ot­ic Front 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion prospec­tive can­di­date for Moru­ga/Table­land, 30-year-old Triv­et Phillip, said young peo­ple aren’t mo­ti­vat­ed to vote be­cause politi­cians do not keep their promis­es.

Phillip said, “As a young per­son, I’ve cho­sen to be a voice for the youths, and there needs to be more space for young peo­ple’s voic­es to be heard. They need to see politi­cians that they can talk to, reach out to, some­one who un­der­stands them. Some­times we mis­un­der­stand the youths when they don’t want to vote. There are a lot of youths who would have been el­i­gi­ble to vote since the last elec­tion, but be­cause they didn’t see any changes that were promised or changes that can help them, they don’t feel mo­ti­vat­ed to vote this time around. They don’t feel mo­ti­vat­ed to be a part of pol­i­tics be­cause they don’t see them­selves ben­e­fit­ing from it.”

They are look­ing for a seat at the ta­ble

For­mer youth par­lia­men­tar­i­an Ke­muel Pas­call said young peo­ple want more pro­grammes geared to­ward youth and an ex­pan­sion of the GATE pro­gramme.

Pas­call said, “They are look­ing for a seat at the ta­ble. What I mean by a seat at the ta­ble is they want their voic­es need to not just be heard, but some of the sug­ges­tions that they have need to be im­ple­ment­ed, so that’s one of the key things in get­ting young peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in the elec­tion. The sec­ond thing needs to be ed­u­ca­tion be­cause if peo­ple aren’t ed­u­cat­ed about the fact that peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly went through a lot of things for them to be able to vote now, they would just think of it as some­thing that el­der­ly peo­ple do or mid­dle-aged peo­ple go out there and do just be­cause they want to elect a par­ty when that’s sim­ply not the case. Your vote mat­ters, and you, as a youth, can change the course of who forms the next gov­ern­ment of the coun­try.”

He added, “I wouldn’t want to dis­count the fact that old­er heads do ob­vi­ous­ly have some lev­el of val­ue to add to the con­ver­sa­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the di­rec­tion in which Trinidad and To­ba­go has to go, but if we can get more young peo­ple want­i­ng to put forth them­selves and par­ties ac­tu­al­ly will­ing to ac­cept the fact that young peo­ple need to be at the ta­ble and their voic­es need to be heard, it can cause their en­tire cam­paign to get more trac­tion just by hav­ing younger per­sons on board.”

Many turned off by the “sys­tem”

How­ev­er, for­mer 2021 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion (LGE) in­de­pen­dent can­di­date for Hin­dus­tan/St Mary’s Ariel Saun­ders be­lieves the par­ty that can get more young peo­ple to the polls will be the par­ty with the up­per hand, as young peo­ple can de­cide the next gov­ern­ment.

Saun­ders said, “Some young peo­ple are deeply en­gaged; they are step­ping up, get­ting in­volved in po­lit­i­cal par­ties, run­ning for of­fice, and push­ing for change. I’ve seen this first­hand. But then, there are many who are com­plete­ly turned off by the sys­tem, dis­il­lu­sioned, frus­trat­ed, and con­vinced that vot­ing wouldn’t change any­thing. Many feel like pol­i­tics has failed them, so they’ve checked out en­tire­ly. But the thing is, whether we like it or not, pol­i­tics af­fects us all. We can pre­tend that it doesn’t mat­ter, but the cost of liv­ing, job op­por­tu­ni­ties, crime, ed­u­ca­tion—every­thing we care about—is shaped by po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions.

"Grow­ing up, I al­ways heard, “Young peo­ple are the fu­ture.” Well, I’m al­most 30 now, and I re­alise that the fu­ture isn’t some dis­tant thing any­more. It is now. The lead­ers we grew up watch­ing are fad­ing out. This is our time, whether we’re ready or not, and if we want a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go, one with op­por­tu­ni­ty in­stead of strug­gle, progress in­stead of stag­na­tion, we must get in­volved."

Not­ing that even if "the par­ti­san na­ture of our pol­i­tics is un­ap­peal­ing," cit­i­zens must step for­ward to re­de­fine it, he said, "As it stands, young peo­ple will be the game chang­ers in this elec­tion. The par­ty that can in­spire them, get them to the polls, and show them that their voice ac­tu­al­ly mat­ters will have the up­per hand. The ques­tion, there­fore, isn’t just about whether young peo­ple will vote, but whether they’ll choose to shape their fu­ture or leave it in the hands of those who may not have to live with the con­se­quences.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) for da­ta on young peo­ple vot­ing at the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, as well as how many are reg­is­tered for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion but was told that da­ta is not avail­able.

The EBC of­fi­cial al­so not­ed that ex­it polls are not con­duct­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and it would there­fore be im­pos­si­ble to dis­close the num­ber of young peo­ple who vot­ed in the last gen­er­al elec­tion.