To­ba­go Cham­ber head and at­tor­ney at law, Mar­tin George says the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is en­ter­ing the Gen­er­al Elec­tion from a “po­si­tion of strength and readi­ness,” while the op­po­si­tion and oth­er par­ties are still try­ing to get their hous­es in or­der.

He said the April 28 date is part of PNM elec­tion strat­e­gy. His com­ments come af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced the elec­tion date, just a day af­ter be­ing sworn in.

“One can on­ly imag­ine that the in­ten­tion and think­ing be­hind the call­ing of the elec­tions with such a short lead time is def­i­nite­ly in­tend­ed to catch the op­po­si­tion, you know, maybe ei­ther un­awares or maybe flat-foot­ed, or maybe at least, cer­tain­ly not ready yet with their full list of 41 can­di­dates,” George said.

The UNC has yet to con­firm its full slate of can­di­dates and has al­ready in­di­cat­ed it will not con­test seats in To­ba­go. George be­lieves this could be a strate­gic move by the PNM, cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the op­po­si­tion’s lack of pre­pared­ness. “Of course, there is more than am­ple time for the op­po­si­tion to be able to get their house in or­der in terms of find­ing suit­able and, I guess, choice can­di­dates,” he added.

The UNC has been form­ing al­liances with groups like the trade union move­ment and the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), but George be­lieves this is far from the strong coali­tion seen in past elec­tions.

“The re­al­i­ty is that this is noth­ing close to, you know, like the One Love Move­ment of 1986 where there was that groundswell of unit­ing of forces against the in­cum­bent gov­ern­ment. So there’s noth­ing like that here.

” He al­so not­ed that the TPP and PDP in To­ba­go are still strug­gling to fi­nal­ize can­di­dates, which shows fur­ther dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion among op­po­si­tion forces. With elec­tion sea­son of­fi­cial­ly un­der­way, George says all sides will now turn to mak­ing promis­es, but the elec­torate will ul­ti­mate­ly de­cide which par­ty has the cred­i­bil­i­ty to de­liv­er.