With the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign in full swing, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) brought a fes­tive at­mos­phere to San Fer­nan­do West as po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­tro­duced four more can­di­dates for next month’s poll.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed that Robert Mitchell of the Love Move­ment will con­test the Laven­tille West seat as part of the Coali­tion of In­ter­est. She al­so an­nounced that in­cum­bent MPs Michelle Ben­jamin, Khadi­jah Ameen, and Dr Roodal Mooni­lal will seek re-elec­tion in their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cies.

With elec­tions of­ten be­ing re­gard­ed as the “Car­ni­val of pol­i­tics,” hun­dreds flocked to Na­pari­ma Col­lege ear­ly, ea­ger to se­cure park­ing and seat­ing—es­pe­cial­ly as sev­er­al red-band maxi-taxis oc­cu­pied much of the avail­able space. Dressed in T-shirts sup­port­ing their re­spec­tive can­di­dates, UNC sup­port­ers gath­ered be­fore fill­ing the au­di­to­ri­um to ca­pac­i­ty, leav­ing many stand­ing. With every thun­der­ous pi­cong, pro­posed plan, and ral­ly­ing cry, horns blared in re­sponse, am­pli­fy­ing the charged at­mos­phere. It was an event teem­ing with young peo­ple, in­clud­ing fresh can­di­dates, while vet­er­an fig­ures such as for­mer UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er and his­to­ri­an Prof Sel­wyn Cud­joe looked on. Some can­di­dates made their en­trance wav­ing a flag across the stage, adding to the spec­ta­cle.

Ear­li­er, a Car­ni­val-like scene un­fold­ed as the UNC’s prospec­tive can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West, Dr Michael Dowlath, led a pro­ces­sion of sup­port­ers from his of­fice on In­de­pen­dence Av­enue to the col­lege. With Machel Mon­tano’s Road March-win­ning so­ca hit Pardy blar­ing in the back­ground, traf­fic briefly came to a stand­still as yel­low and blue-clad sup­port­ers waved UNC flags in the streets, jump­ing and danc­ing in cel­e­bra­tion.

In an in­ter­view on Mon­day evening, Ben­jamin ex­pressed con­fi­dence in se­cur­ing the par­ty’s nom­i­na­tion, stat­ing that the UNC had been on the ground prepar­ing since last year, con­duct­ing its home­work, and so­lid­i­fy­ing its strat­e­gy. De­spite not yet be­ing of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced as a can­di­date, she em­pha­sised her com­mit­ment to the cam­paign.

“What hap­pens now is that every can­di­date who has been an­nounced is work­ing even hard­er. We are on the ground, en­gag­ing with the base, and bring­ing vic­to­ry to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress—not just for the par­ty, but for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.” De­spite the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) cap­tur­ing the Lengua/In­di­an Walk dis­trict from the UNC in last year’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, she in­sist­ed that it would not af­fect her sup­port in the Moru­ga/Table­land con­stituen­cy.

“The PNM did not make any in­roads. What they did was bring out their gen­er­al elec­tion num­bers by us­ing in­duce­ments such as ham­pers and oth­er re­sources. But that will not hap­pen again—the peo­ple have learned. They have been burned too many times un­der this Gov­ern­ment, and they are more than ready. Even in their strong­hold polling di­vi­sions with­in my con­stituen­cy, they are in for a rude awak­en­ing.”

Last month, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley com­mis­sioned the Gran Chemin Fish­ing Cen­tre—an­oth­er ma­jor fa­cil­i­ty in the con­stituen­cy, fol­low­ing the Moru­ga Agro-Pro­cess­ing and Light In­dus­tri­al Park, which opened in Ju­ly 2020. Ben­jamin said that while the lat­ter was in­au­gu­rat­ed just be­fore the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, her con­stituents still elect­ed her. “They opened that fa­cil­i­ty, and to date, it is not ful­ly op­er­a­tional. Re­gard­ing the rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny for the fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty, that fa­cil­i­ty re­mains closed. The on­ly per­son there is the se­cu­ri­ty guard.”

Mean­while, Ameen, the in­cum­bent St Au­gus­tine MP, ex­pressed con­fi­dence in her per­for­mance in the con­stituen­cy and her vo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion both in­side and out­side Par­lia­ment.

Hav­ing been a UNC mem­ber be­fore 2010, she un­der­scored the im­por­tance of part­ner­ship and the Coali­tion of In­ter­est.

“So if, in their wis­dom, they had de­cid­ed to se­lect some­one else, I would have seen the val­ue in it. I worked in op­po­si­tion, putting in blood, sweat, and tears, and we weren’t win­ning—un­til Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar brought to­geth­er that part­ner­ship. So I see the val­ue of dif­fer­ent en­ti­ties com­ing to­geth­er, and I am open to it. Be­cause of that Coali­tion of In­ter­est, we are on the road to vic­to­ry in this gen­er­al elec­tion,” Ameen said.

She dis­missed claims that the Gov­ern­ment had caught the Op­po­si­tion off-guard by set­ting a short cam­paign sea­son, as­sert­ing that the UNC had start­ed its prepa­ra­tions months ago. She re­called Per­sad-Bisses­sar ral­ly­ing the par­ty’s sup­port­ers as ear­ly as Sep­tem­ber 1, 2024.