In her recent commentary [Daily Express https://tinyurl.com/2x4rbhda], Lynette Joseph offers readers a lyrical but profoundly misleading take on the upcoming 2025 general election. She champions Professor Hamid Ghany’s polling analysis but then veers into a full-throated defence of the People’s National Movement (PNM)—not as a political party, but as a fixed point in national destiny. Her piece masquerades as political insight; in truth, it is a partisan hymn to a ruling elite who have governed without vision, without transparency, and without accountability.
Let us confront the facts: Trinidad and Tobago is not thriving. It is treading water in a sea of missed opportunities, systemic patronage, and elite impunity.
The Real Legacy of the PNM: Cronyism, Cutbacks, and Captured Institutions
Lynette Joseph’s portrayal of the PNM as an inclusive, reformist movement would be laughable—if it were not so offensive to the thousands of citizens who have been shut out, let down, and sold short by this administration.
1. The Dismantling of Educational Opportunity
Under the PNM, access to higher education has been gutted. The Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses (GATE) programme, once a passport to progress for working-class families, has been rolled back. Postgraduate students have been pushed out, and those from middle-income households now face crippling fees. Meanwhile, those with political connections receive scholarships in secret, with no application process, no criteria, and no requirement to repay.
One scandalous example: Laurel Lezama-Lee Sing, a former PNM senator, received over TT$500,000 in state funds for overseas education. This “scholarship” was never publicly accounted for, raising red flags in the Auditor General’s 2010 Report. The lack of transparency violated the principles of natural justice and fiduciary duty—yet not a single minister was held accountable.
This is not governance. It is state-sanctioned nepotism.
2. The Institutionalisation of Crony Contracts
The PNM has entrenched a system of state contracts awarded not on merit, but on loyalty, family name, and political proximity.
-
The Young family, including the Prime Minister’s brother, has been linked to security contracts with NGC and Heritage Petroleum. No competitive tendering. No public scrutiny.
-
The Al-Rawi family, with substantial real estate holdings, has benefitted from state leases, housing consultations, and untendered legal briefs.
-
Projects in Point Fortin, Moruga, and EMBD land developments have exploded in cost—often doubling initial estimates—without explanation or consequence. Where are the audits? Where is the procurement oversight?
These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a system designed to reward insiders and exclude the rest.
Silencing the Watchdogs, Stalling the Law
The PNM deliberately starved the Procurement Regulator’s office of funding, delaying the enforcement of legislation that could curb precisely the abuses listed above. It has hollowed out independent offices, discouraged transparency, and actively undermined Parliamentary Joint Select Committees, refusing to answer hard questions or produce key documents.
This is government by evasion, not oversight.
The Myth of Inclusivity
Joseph claims the PNM “welcomes all and sundry”. But inclusivity is not a slogan—it is a practice. In reality:
-
Dissenters face blacklisting.
-
Whistleblowers are silenced or sidelined.
-
Only those who “play the game” are rewarded with jobs, contracts, or housing allocations.
In contrast, she paints the United National Congress (UNC) as merely “salivating over crossover citizens”. Yet it is the UNC that has opened its candidate slate to youth, women, and professionals from across the social spectrum. Has it made mistakes? Certainly. But unlike the PNM, it is no longer operating as a closed family firm.
A Nation in Decline, A Future at Risk
Joseph closes by suggesting the 2025 election is “not about ethnicity or religion” but about “who will wake up and smell the fearsome IMF coffee”. On this, we agree—but she fails to mention that it is the PNM’s economic mismanagement that brewed that coffee in the first place.
With oil and gas revenues volatile, and no serious economic diversification, Trinidad and Tobago stands on a precipice. Corruption, brain drain, and inequality are not abstract risks—they are daily realities. This is not just bad politics. It is an existential failure of leadership.
Conclusion: Reject Fear, Demand Accountability
Lynette Joseph’s article asks us to ignore history, forgive betrayal, and accept the status quo as inevitable. But we must reject nostalgia for a past that never served all of us equally. The 2025 election is not a coronation. It is a chance to reclaim the republic from a political cartel that governs by favour, not fairness.
We are not powerless. Our votes are not valueless.
Let us vote not for party, but for principle. Let us rebuild a nation not for the connected few—but for the many who have waited too long for justice, jobs, and dignity.
