Kamla Writes PM for Election Observers for General Elections

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has written to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to have election observers for the next general elections constitutionally due next year.

Speaking at the United National Congress (UNC) meeting at its headquarters in Chaguanas on Monday she said she drafted a letter to the prime minister to formally request that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago invite independent international election observers for the upcoming 2025 General Elections.

She said, “I think this is a very important exercise, we cannot let the time come and go, we have sufficient time.”

Persad-Bissessar read from the letter: “I write to formally request that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, which you lead, gives an official commitment to me, and by extension, the citizens of our beloved country, that you will, as a matter of priority and ethical obligation, ensure the presence of independent international election observers for the 2025 General Elections.

“To this end, I ask that you commit to issuing the relevant invitations with urgency to several major international observer bodies, (which I will include hereunder—see Appendix 1), to uphold and preserve the Constitutional right of citizens, in accordance with the cherished democratic principles that govern our nation.”

She said it should be delivered on Tuesday.

During the 2020 general elections, Persad-Bissessar made the same call but observers were not brought in. Among other reasons, Dr Rowley had said the time was too short to bring in observers given the Covid-19 pandemic and travelling protocols involved.

Persad-Bissessar said, ” In that letter I set out, we were one of the few countries who didn’t allow internal observers, you all remember that. At one point he said they want money and he don’t have no money.

“But our history has always been for fair and free democratic elections to have international observers and we are going to stick to that and we would repeat it ad nauseam.”