It’s of­fi­cial—the gen­er­al elec­tion in T&T will be held on April 28.

That’s the date an­nounced by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) at 3.50 pm yes­ter­day for T&T’s next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Word came a day af­ter new Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young was sworn in­to of­fice on Mon­day.

The an­nounce­ment of the date, which had been men­tioned in a po­lit­i­cal col­umn in the Guardian last Sat­ur­day and sev­er­al times be­fore, has put an end to the spec­u­la­tion that had been on­go­ing since last year about when the gen­er­al elec­tion would be held.

The date will ar­rive four months ahead of the of­fi­cial end of the term of the cur­rent 12th Par­lia­ment on Au­gust 27.

The Par­lia­ment was ex­pect­ed to be dis­solved at mid­night last night.

The OPM’s an­nounce­ment was head­lined: “Prime Min­is­ter Young Calls Gen­er­al Elec­tion—28 April 2025.”

The re­lease stat­ed: “Prime Min­is­ter the Hon Stu­art R Young, SC, has ad­vised Her Ex­cel­len­cy Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, ORTT Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to dis­solve Par­lia­ment with ef­fect from mid­night on Tues­day, 18 March 2025, in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 68 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

The Prime Min­is­ter has al­so ad­vised the Pres­i­dent that, “In ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 33 of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, Chap. 2:01, Writs of Elec­tion for the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions are to be is­sued on the 18th day of March 2025 and are to fix Fri­day 4 April 2025 as Nom­i­na­tion Day and Mon­day 28 April 2025 as Polling Day.”

The an­nounce­ment was Young’s sec­ond ac­tion as Prime Min­is­ter af­ter ap­point­ing his Cab­i­net on Mon­day. Lat­er that day, a strat­e­gy meet­ing in­volv­ing the PNM par­ty and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials was held.

Young had been hint­ing since last year that the elec­tion was draw­ing clos­er. The PNM be­gan an­nounc­ing can­di­dates last Au­gust, con­clud­ing last week Mon­day. When con­clud­ed, Young said the “bat­tle lines had been drawn and the PNM had joined the bat­tle.”

The same was said by for­mer PM Row­ley last Sun­day when the PNM launched their can­di­dates for all 41 con­stituen­cies at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain. The event was al­so held to bid farewell to Row­ley, whose res­ig­na­tion be­came ef­fec­tive that day. Row­ley had an­nounced on Jan­u­ary 3 that he would re­sign from the po­si­tion.

Last Sun­day’s can­di­date pre­sen­ta­tion at Wood­ford Square bore all the hall­marks of a gen­er­al elec­tion launch, in­clud­ing ad­dress­es by Row­ley, Young, and oth­er speak­ers.

Row­ley as PNM po­lit­i­cal

leader in elec­tion

Row­ley didn’t re­ply yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia queries on the elec­tion date, his pos­si­ble in­put in plan­ning the date, or his role in the PNM’s elec­tion or­gan­i­sa­tion. Young, as well as PNM cam­paign man­ag­er Ro­han Sinanan and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, did not an­swer ei­ther.

Row­ley post­ed on his Face­book last Sun­day: “While my term of of­fice as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM legal­ly runs un­til 2026, it is my in­ten­tion to va­cate this po­si­tion at the ear­li­est in con­sul­ta­tion with the lead­er­ship of the move­ment …”

Top PNM of­fi­cials point­ed out that Row­ley had not yet re­signed as po­lit­i­cal leader, and the par­ty, in the elec­tion set­ting, couldn’t have a lead­er­ship elec­tion. “There­fore, it looks like Dr Row­ley re­mains po­lit­i­cal leader at this point.”

PNM had no choice,
UNC ready—Kam­la

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day, “We’ve been call­ing for an elec­tion; we wel­come this date, and we’re pre­pared and con­fi­dent of win­ning. We have the work to do, but we’re pre­pared to do that work. Our in­de­pen­dent polling shows we’re poised for vic­to­ry.

“The PNM’s MPs failed to do what they should have done to pro­tect T&T from be­ing gift­ed to a se­lect group of Young’s fi­nanciers. There­fore, the elec­torate now has to pro­vide that pro­tec­tion.

“Mr Young has been a one-day Prime Min­is­ter and he’s been gift­ed with a life­time pen­sion of $87,000 month­ly for the rest of his life—a gold­en hand­shake from his god­fa­ther, boss Row­ley,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The elec­tion date is al­so the PNM’s way of run­ning away from le­gal ac­tion the UNC was con­tem­plat­ing. “They got wind of the fact we were plan­ning to file a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion in the Par­lia­ment, so they dis­solved the Par­lia­ment.

“Fur­ther, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s lat­est re­port was due to be laid in Par­lia­ment on April 30, so what­ev­er those con­tents are, they’ve run away from. I’m sure there were many things in that to cause con­cern.”

She added, “Young al­so hur­ried­ly called the date to pre-empt UNC’s im­pend­ing le­gal ac­tion re­gard­ing his il­le­git­i­mate and il­le­gal anoint­ing as Prime Min­is­ter. Young and the PNM ful­ly well know that his ap­point­ment is il­le­gal and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al. His ap­point­ment would have been shown to be un­con­sti­tu­tion­al in the courts, and he’d then have been forced to face a PNM in­ter­nal elec­tion be­fore the elec­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “Pen­ny Beck­les would have dec­i­mat­ed him in any in­ter­nal elec­tion ...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that since last year, UNC’s nom­i­na­tions have been on, and screen­ing was com­plet­ed re­cent­ly.

The UNC’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests with the OW­TU and PEP has so far an­nounced 11 can­di­dates out of the 39 Trinidad seats UNC is con­test­ing—San Fer­nan­do West, San Fer­nan­do East, To­co-San­gre Grande, Arou­ca-Lopinot, Trinci­ty Mal­oney, St Joseph, Ch­agua­nas East, Barataria-San Juan, La Hor­quet­ta-Tal­paro, La Brea, and Point Fortin.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said more will be an­nounced this week.

UNC, COP talks fi­nal­is­ing

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia that arrange­ments be­tween the UNC and the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) are be­ing fi­nalised this week. This fol­lows COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har’s state­ments that COP had reached out to the UNC to dis­cuss its de­sire to con­test sev­er­al seats.

On the elec­tion date, COP leader Ra­mad­har said, “On 28 April, T&T will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­cide whether it wish­es to be led by pro­pa­gan­da or per­for­mance, whether it wish­es to have a bet­ter fu­ture or to al­low ten years of fail­ure to go in­to 15 years.”

Cit­ing T&T’s lega­cy of fair elec­tions, Ra­mad­har added, “I look for­ward to an elec­tion that is with­out un­due events and for peo­ple to come to­geth­er to pre­serve the present and pre­pare a fu­ture for our chil­dren.

“An elec­tion is a very im­por­tant thing with con­se­quences. We can­not al­low emo­tions to rule or loy­al­ties that failed us in the past to con­tin­ue. There’s lit­tle time with much work to be done—we’ve done it be­fore, and we’ll do it again. To­geth­er as a peo­ple, we’ll make T&T a bet­ter place,” Ra­mad­har added.

NTA, HOPE, and CRN ready

The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA)—part of the Peo­ple’s Al­liance coali­tion with the HOPE and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­form Net­work—has been eye­ing an April 28 elec­tion date since Jan­u­ary, said NTA leader Gary Grif­fith.

“We haven’t been caught with our pants down. We an­tic­i­pat­ed this date, which is why we had our first ma­jor po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in St Joseph last week. We start­ed the cam­paign in ad­vance, an­tic­i­pat­ing 28 April,” he added.

“We’ve been pre­pared. Oth­er par­ties ask­ing for an elec­tion may not have been. So, you know the say­ing, ‘Be care­ful what you ask for. You may very well get it.’ This is the first time in 18 years T&T will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty for a third choice. The last time was in 2007 with the COP. So, for those 148,000-odd per­sons still around, this is your op­por­tu­ni­ty again to vote for a po­lit­i­cal par­ty not based on blind loy­al­ty but based on whether you be­lieve that par­ty can pro­vide you with what you re­quire over the next five years.”

Grif­fith said, “It’s go­ing to be a gen­er­al elec­tion, not a war, so please do not let politi­cians de­lib­er­ate­ly go out to cause di­vi­sion and ha­tred be­tween cit­i­zens. We have no in­ten­tion to go down that road. Let it be a clean cam­paign. At the end of the day, come 29 April, re­gard­less of the re­sult, there’s go­ing to be one prime min­is­ter and one gov­ern­ment that we all need to sup­port.”

HOPE chair­man Steve Al­varez said it was ex­pect­ed the coali­tion would field 22 seats as NTA has 14 can­di­dates and HOPE plans to con­test eight seats in Trinidad. Al­varez added, “We’re meet­ing again to firm up.”

Mick­ela ready!

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) leader Mick­ela Pan­day, on a walk­a­bout in Sea Lots yes­ter­day, de­clared, “The elec­tion has been called, T&T, we’re ready!” PF has an­nounced 14 can­di­dates so far.

PDP, TPP, IDA off

PDP leader Wat­son Duke’s To­ba­go West can­di­date will be an­nounced im­mi­nent­ly. Duke said he was con­test­ing To­ba­go East.

To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty, led by To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine, launch­es its can­di­dates at a March 23 spe­cial con­ven­tion, said TPP deputy leader Faith Breb­nor. TPP’s To­ba­go East can­di­date David Thomas was re­cent­ly an­nounced.

In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance leader Denise Tsoiafatt-An­gus said IDA’s can­di­dates will be an­nounced on March 25.

Elec­tion mi­nus SoE

While a State of Emer­gency is in place, it ends on March 30 and will not be ex­tend­ed. The ex­ten­sion would have re­quired de­bate in Par­lia­ment, but Par­lia­ment was dis­solved last night.

New Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les, as­sur­ing safe­ty for the elec­tion, said, “All na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or­gans will be ful­ly mo­bilised and placed on high alert to en­sure that law and or­der are main­tained dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign and on polling day. T&T is a mod­el democ­ra­cy with a his­to­ry of free and fair elec­tions. This tra­di­tion ought to be main­tained and pre­served.”

The up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion will be the sec­ond called by a PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion ahead of the end of a term. In 2010, then-prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning called an elec­tion that year—two years ear­li­er than it was due in 2013—and the PNM lost to the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion.

The last gen­er­al elec­tion, held on Mon­day, Au­gust 10, 2020, was T&T’s 14th since in­de­pen­dence and the 22nd na­tion­al elec­tion in T&T’s his­to­ry. That elec­tion saw the PNM win­ning 22 seats to the UNC’s 19.