Prime Minister Stuart Young has warned that attempts to influence or prevent voters from exercising their rights are not only wrong – they’re against the law.
At a People’s National Movement Public Meeting in Sangre Grande on Thursday, Mr. Young sounded the alarm over the issue of intimidation and voter suppression, which he said has escalated in the 2025 election season.
He also told supporters in Sangre Grande that citizens have a right to vote for their own choice on April 28th.
“We must be able to think for ourselves and to decide who we are going to vote for, and we will not allow anybody with their ‘yellow is the code’ or whatever it is to threaten – and you know what they’re doing – they’re threatening our old senior citizens.”
He shared that the senior citizens within Sangre Grande who are being intimidated are being asked not to vote.
“This is not an isolated incident. I have had the same complaints from senior citizens in Moruga, in St. Joseph, in San Fernando West, in Tunapuna, and this type of behaviour has to stop tonight because it is our right to vote for who we want to.”
Mr. Young said such acts are against the law.
“Those are criminal offences. Intimidating people to try and affect how they vote, and to try and prevent them from voting, or to tell them how to vote, is a criminal offence. To try and suppress people from going to the polls is a criminal offence, and tonight it is my duty to raise this with you.”
Prime Minister Young tied today’s struggles to the country’s history, drawing a direct line back to the founding of the People’s National Movement.
“Because you see, in 1956, when our great party was born, a scholar and a leader called Dr. Eric Williams took it upon himself with another group of intellectuals to fight against colonialism, and he formed the People’s National Movement and they went off to London, to Marlborough House, and they had the vision to fight for the independence of Trinidad and Tobago.”
Prime Minister Young called on citizens to protect the democracy built by the leaders of the past.