Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts say a com­bi­na­tion of ar­ro­gance, pub­lic dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Stu­art Young’s se­lec­tion as prime min­is­ter, wide­spread out­rage over salary in­creas­es for politi­cians, and grow­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic pres­sures con­tributed to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) de­feat in Mon­day’s elec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Shane Mo­hammed, sev­er­al is­sues have weighed heav­i­ly on the pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing re­duced ac­cess to the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (GATE) pro­gramme, ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment—even among pro­fes­sion­als such as med­ical doc­tors and de­gree hold­ers—soar­ing food prices, in­fla­tion, in­creased pover­ty, a high cost of liv­ing, and bur­den­some tax­a­tion.

“It was as if we were faced with bat­tered woman syn­drome. We were get­ting licks. We were get­ting bouffed by our em­ploy­ees. The peo­ple that we em­ployed to gov­ern our busi­ness were ar­ro­gant to us, ag­gres­sive to us,” he said.