Trinidad and Tobago Opposition leader Kamla Persad targets government, poll body over 2025 election

Trinidad and Tobago’s Leader of Opposition Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Monday, December 9, took a firm stand in the Parliament over the general election of the island-nation due in 2025. While the former prime minister took a dig at the People’s National Movement government of Prime Minister Keith Rowley accusing it of not revealing details about the polls and they were learning more from newspapers, she said her part and the people of Trinidad and Tobago were ready. 

“The time will come, and the people are eagerly awaiting to vote you out of office!” said Persad-Bissessar, the island-nation’s first woman prime minister who was in office between 2010 and 2015. She was speaking on a motion to approve the Draft Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) Order 2024, which got the approval. 

In its report, the commission reviewed the boundaries of all 41 parliamentary constituencies.

The Indian-origin leader targeted the EBC, which conducts elections and reviews constituency boundaries, in connection with the management of the upcoming election. According to Persad-Bissessar, the EBC was using ‘outdated data’ in the run-up to the polling. She said the EBC kicked off a national field-verification exercise in 2023, after a gap of 22 years. The EBC said on its website it was important to have an accurate and up-to-date electoral list for fair polls. 

The United National Congress (UNC) veteran, who has in the past accused EBC officials of having political affiliations, said the latter’s failure to conduct the key exercise for more than two decades vindicated her party’s allegations of biased functioning against it.

“These electoral lists, pursuant to this EBC order and thereafter the writ of elections, are going to be based on 2020 data, so we are working on false lists,” she said.

“If this is not fixed, we cannot have a free and fair election.”

Persad-Bissessar was also worried over the inclusion of dead people’s names on the electoral list. She sought to know the status of the national census by the Central Statistical Office, saying data from the census will help to have an accurate electoral list. The Opposition leader asked whether the government was hiding the census report. 

Persad-Bissessar questioned the EBC over allegedly taking polling divisions from ‘PNM waterbeds’ and moving them to other constituencies in the name of boundary change, suggesting that a plan was in place to help the ruling party. She said the Opposition did not intend to disapprove the EBC draft and was keen to go to the polls. 

The PNM scripted a narrow win in the 2020 election, securing 22 out of 41 seats in Parliament, while Persad-Bissessar’s UNC ended up with 19.