Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has dis­missed claims that the Gov­ern­ment and the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion were reg­is­ter­ing Venezue­lans liv­ing in this coun­try to vote in the Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

“I stand here to­day say­ing please ig­nore this com­plete­ly mis­lead­ing - in­ten­tion­al­ly mis­lead­ing - and fake and false con­ver­sa­tion that is be­ing spurned from cer­tain quar­ters that want to in­ter­fere with your peace and psy­che go­ing in­to the elec­tion,” Young said.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter cit­ed a Cab­i­net meet­ing on April 17, 2019, when he was Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter about a plan for the Venezue­lan Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Pro­gramme. He said the Cab­i­net ac­cept­ed the rec­om­men­da­tion that the Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Pro­gramme and the pe­ri­od per­mit­ted for any Venezue­lan to be in T&T un­der this pol­i­cy will not form part of any cal­cu­la­tion of the time re­quired to file for res­i­den­cy.

“We did this as a hu­man­i­tar­i­an ges­ture. The 16,000-odd Venezue­lans that reg­is­tered at that time do not get any rights in law,” Young stressed.

He added, “None of these Venezue­lan cit­i­zens who are reg­is­tered un­der the Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Pro­gramme are go­ing to have any le­gal rights to­wards res­i­den­cy or the abil­i­ty to vote in the up­com­ing elec­tions.”

He called on the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to ig­nore “that in­ten­tion­al mis­in­for­ma­tion.”

Asked if a Venezue­lan man or woman mar­ried to a Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zen would be al­lowed to vote, Young said “The an­swer is with­in the ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty of the law.” He said the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion would do its in­ves­ti­ga­tions as to whether or not it was a mar­riage of con­ve­nience, if the na­tion­al was in a po­si­tion to sup­port their Venezue­lan spouse and if their chil­dren were born in Trinidad.

“There is no mag­ic for­mu­la,” Young said but in­stead it is up to the im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer in­ves­ti­gat­ing the cir­cum­stances of a case.

When pressed on the Gov­ern­ment’s plans for Venezue­lans liv­ing in T&T, he said the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will have to make a rec­om­men­da­tion to the Cab­i­net be­fore a pol­i­cy de­ci­sion is made on whether the Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Pro­gramme will con­tin­ue or not.

More ob­servers com­ing

Mean­while, Com­mon­wealth ob­servers will mon­i­tor the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions. This was con­firmed by Prime Min­is­ter Young yes­ter­day.

Young said af­ter he wrote to the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at on March 19, re­quest­ing ob­servers it was un­cer­tain due to fund­ing is­sues. How­ev­er, on March 25, Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Baroness Pa­tri­cia Scot­land wrote him back con­firm­ing a Com­mon­wealth mis­sion will mon­i­tor T&T’s elec­tion set for April 28.

Scot­land al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Young on be­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter.

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) al­ready con­firmed that it will be send­ing ob­servers to T&T for the polls.

The Gov­ern­ment has al­so writ­ten to the Carter Cen­tre in the Unit­ed States to de­ploy ob­servers for this coun­try’s Gen­er­al Elec­tions but is yet to get a re­sponse. Young has told For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Dr Amery Browne, to fol­low up with them.