While the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) marks its first an­niver­sary of re­turn­ing to pow­er, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is fac­ing a pe­ri­od of in­tro­spec­tion fol­low­ing its 26-13 de­feat in the April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, as­sess­ing the one-year mile­stone, sug­gests the re­sult was less an over­whelm­ing man­date and more a re­flec­tion of sys­temic vot­er ap­a­thy.

Cit­ing the more than 100,000 cit­i­zens who ab­stained from vot­ing, Al-Rawi ar­gued that the out­come was a di­rect con­se­quence of a dis­con­nect be­tween the par­ty and the pub­lic.

“I wasn’t very sur­prised by the elec­tion re­sult in last year’s turn of the polls. It def­i­nite­ly was ei­ther go­ing to be very nar­row or this re­sult that we had. I thought that the PNM had a lot of work to do in terms of en­gag­ing the pub­lic. I def­i­nite­ly think that is some­thing that re­flect­ed in the poll. And Trinidad and To­ba­go has the clear knowl­edge now that democ­ra­cy has con­se­quences, right?” Al-Rawi stat­ed.