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Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister, Stuart Young and Opposition Leader, Kamla Persad Bissessar. (CMC File Photo)
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Prime Minister Stuart Young has announced the date for general elections, less than 24 hours after he was sworn in as the eighth prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
Young, 50, who replaced Dr. Keith Rowley as prime minister and named his 24-member cabinet on Monday, said the election will be held on April 28, four months ahead of the fifth anniversary of the 2020 general election when the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) won 22 of the 41 seats in the Parliament.
The other 19 seats went to the main opposition United National Congress (UNC), which has been calling for an early general election and insisted that Young’s elevation to the top position in the government was unconstitutional.
The UNC said it was prepared to have the matter challenged in court, even as some prominent Senior Counsel brushed aside the comment.
President Kangaloo in a three-page statement defended her decision to appoint Young as prime minister following what she termed as “the present unique circumstances surrounding the transition from one Prime Minister to another”.
President Kangaloo said that her statement was also being made “in the interest of transparency and so as to assist the public in understanding why I have acted as I have”.
A brief statement from the Office of the Prime Minister said that Prime Minister Young had advised President Christine Kangaloo to dissolve Parliament as of midnight on Tuesday.
Nomination Day is April 4 and the statement said that the Writs of Election are to be issued on March 18.
In an immediate response, UNC and Opposition Leader, Kamla Persad Bissessar, said the party, which has been holding talks with minor opposition parties and some trade unions, is prepared for the general election.
“The UNC is ready, and we will do what PNM MPs failed to do which is to protect our country from being gifted to a selfish select group of Young’s financiers,” she said, adding that “Young hurriedly called the date to preempt the UNC legal action that was coming 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 would then be forced to face a PNM internal election before the GE. Penny would have decimated him in any internal election and the PNM financiers backed coup would have been put down”.
The PNM last weekend presented its 41 candidates at a special convention of the party held at Woodford Square in the heart of the capital, while the UNC has been holding cottage meetings and screening candidates to contest the election.
Apart from the two main political parties, the election will most likely be contested by Gary Griffith’s National Transformation Party (NTP) and the Tobago People’s Party, led by the current Chief Secretary in the Tobago House of Assembly, Farley Augustine.
Speaking on a radio programme here, Augustine said that the party is ready for the elections and is confident it will win the two seats on the sister island, currently held by the PNM.
“We are ready, we have been preparing and we have been essentially lining up all our ducks in a row to ensure that strategically we can win both Tobago East and Tobago West seats.
“We are confident, we are going into the election hopeful that Tobago will actually regain those two seats for itself so that Tobago will have a negotiating place of power and that Tobago’s business will once again get some supremacy in the national parliament,” Augustine said.
Political analyst, Derek Ramsamooj, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that “it is surprising that Prime Minister Young made the decision to call the election without giving the electorate the opportunity to see his prime ministerial leadership.
“We have to ask ourselves what is the strategic reason for calling the election. Does he believe that the Opposition Leader, Kamla Persad Bissessar, is sufficiently weak that now is the next opportune time to win an election”.
Ramsamooj said that there are “economic uncertainties and political volatility” tied to the Drag oil deal between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, given the United States position under Donald Trump to seek to reverse most of the decisions taken by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
“Many had anticipated an election much later this year. This has certainly made the election a 60-meter sprint,” Ramsamooj told CMC.
