The general election in Trinidad and Tobago on Monday resulted in a political earthquake with a new preliminary configuration of 26-13-2 in the 13th Parliament.
Preliminary figures show 26 seats for the United National Congress (UNC), 13 for the People’s National Movement (PNM) and two for the Tobago People’s Party (TPP).
The PNM lost. And badly. The country has gone yellow to the UNC. With 26 seats in the bag, the UNC has won a constitutional majority in a virtual reboot of 2010. (In 2010 the UNC-led coalition then known as the People’s Partnership won 29 seats against the PNM’s 12.
The UNC regained the Government, after a ten-year hiatus, winning a comfortable majority in which it does not even need the support of the Tobago seats.
Stuart Young’s stint as Prime Minister is now the shortest in the country’s history – having lasted just over one month.
And Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who became the first female Prime Minister in 2010, has returned for a second term.
“When God says yes, nobody can say no,” Persad Bissessar said in her victory speech in Chaguanas as she acknowledged the applause on her hard-fought victory.
“Now that the UNC has won, everybody wins,” she declared, repeating the party’s slogan. “After years we spent listening to you…your wants, your needs, your hopes and your desires, it is now that the real work starts.”
She said, from day one, the new UNC government will focus on delivering on its promises.
The UNC’s promises appeared to have resonated with the population, while the PNM’s message of a bold new chapter failed to capture the imagination of the electorate.
The PNM, which held the two Tobago seats for the last 25 years, lost Tobago entirely to Farley Augustine’s Tobago People’s Party.
Oh well same old same old recycles…..and the reason why she had lost in 2010 was due her politics and policies that was just for the Indian some. Who could forget those famous words after the hurricane “ Trinidad and Tobago was not an ATM” . Allan you all can have tea together and perhaps argue who has a brighter shade of yellow there there there.