The An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) is dis­tanc­ing it­self from po­lit­i­cal com­ments made by some Imams and says those views should be clear­ly pre­sent­ed as per­son­al opin­ions, not of­fi­cial po­si­tions.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­pares for its up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, a lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy ex­pert is rais­ing red flags about the grow­ing role of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in po­lit­i­cal cam­paign­ing.

A to­tal of 161 can­di­dates will be con­test­ing the up­com­ing Par­lia­men­tary Elec­tions on April 28, the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has con­firmed.

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) will con­test St Ann’s East and Port-of-Spain South in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion as part of a new coali­tion with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

For­mer Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ca­roni Cen­tral, Arnold Ram has said that his ded­i­ca­tion to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) re­mains un­wa­ver­ing af­ter be­ing over­looked as a nom­i­nee for the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, de­spite his dis­ap­point­ment in be­ing left out.

For­mer Snr Supt of po­lice and prospec­tive can­di­date for Tu­na­puna Roger Alexan­der has vowed that ad­di­tion­al re­sources and equip­ment would be in­vest­ed in this coun­try’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies if the UNC is vot­ed in­to of­fice.

She ac­knowl­edged that the UNC’s lead­er­ship in­formed her of the de­ci­sion to choose a new can­di­date for Tabaquite. “I un­der­stand the Par­ty’s de­ci­sion and be­lieve the se­lect­ed can­di­date re­flects its present phi­los­o­phy,” she said, wish­ing her con­stituents well as they en­ter a “new era of rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

Talks be­tween Garvin Nicholas and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) have col­lapsed, prompt­ing the Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (MND) leader to con­firm he will in­de­pen­dent­ly con­test the Diego Mar­tin North East seat in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

While the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) calls for in­de­pen­dent in­ter­na­tion­al elec­tion ob­servers for next month’s Gen­er­al Elec­tions, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) and HOPE be­lieve Cari­com’s pres­ence will suf­fice.

Find­ing the log­ic be­hind de­ci­sions made by politi­cians re­lat­ing to the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the elec­tion date is akin to Bas­deo Pan­day’s dic­tum that “pol­i­tics has a moral­i­ty of its own.” That left be­hind, the ex­pec­ta­tion must now be that the elec­torate will have to adopt far more con­ven­tion­al log­ic to elect­ing a par­ty and even­tu­al­ly a gov­ern­ment to suc­cess­ful­ly han­dle the af­fairs of the coun­try for the next five years.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has called on the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour not to make any ref­er­ence to the par­ty in its mon­i­tor­ing of the op­er­a­tions of po­lit­i­cal par­ties, not­ing that the UNC with­drew from the coun­cil this year.

Since the an­nounce­ment of the April 28 date for the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, there has been a surge in the num­ber of peo­ple vis­it­ing the of­fices of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) across the coun­try.