Kamla Persad-Bissessar, newly elected Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. October 6, 2011 photo by The Commonwealth on Flickr, (CC BY-NC 2.0).

In a decisive return to power, Kamla Persad-Bissessar has led the United National Congress (UNC) party to a landslide victory in Trinidad and Tobago's hotly contested general election, held on April 28. Her party, the leadership of which Persad-Bissessar has steadfastly maintained despite calls – even within party ranks – for her to resign, secured 26 out of 41 parliamentary seats, surpassing the 21-seat majority threshold, and unseating the ruling People's National Movement (PNM), which retained 13 seats. The Tobago People's Party (TPP) claimed the remaining two seats in the sister isle. The winning party has already requested recounts in three constituencies where the ballot tallies were close.

​The outcome of this election marks the beginning of Persad-Bissessar's second prime ministerial stint, having been elected in 2010 as the country's first – and still only – woman prime minister. After that initial five-year term, her party occupied the opposition bench for a decade, even as the electorate grew weary of economic struggles and rising rates of violent crime.

The UNC, which Facebook user Teocah Arieal Ainka Dove thought “ran one of the most tactical, cohesive and strategic communications campaigns” she has “seen in a while,” focused its messaging on tackling crime, stabilising the economy, and restoring public trust. Tangible ways in which Persad-Bissessar proposed to deliver on such promises include a 60-point anti-crime plan, raising public sector wages, protecting the pensions of senior citizens, creating jobs, getting the children's hospital her government had opened in central Trinidad back up and running, and reopening Petrotrin, the state-owned oil company that was shut down by the now-outgoing government in 2018.

Part of the UNC's campaign centred around town hall-type meetings whereby people were invited to air their concerns about a range of issues, including crime, health, education, infrastructure and more – conversations that helped the party create inroads into former PNM strongholds.

Added to this, the new kid on the political block – The Patriotic Front (TPF), led by Mickela Panday, daughter of the late politician Basdeo Panday – made some impressive strides in its first election bid, establishing itself as a real threat to the two-party system. While the UNC won the popular vote (334,874), and the PNM came in second (220,160 votes), Panday's party secured the third largest number of votes overall – 21,010 – more than the TPP, which received 13,857 votes and landed both parliamentary seats in Tobago.

​The snap election, announced on March 18, followed a period of political upheaval in which former Prime Minister Keith Rowley announced his resignation and appointed Minister of Energy and Energy Stuart Young his successor, adding to the general dissatisfaction. Although President Christine Kangaloo assured the population that within the country's constitution, “there is occasion for the appointment of a Prime Minister,” in mid-March, shortly before a state of emergency imposed by the then government came to an end, Persad-Bissessar called the move “an unlawful act of desperation.”

“Imagine this,” she added, “the country remains in an emergency, with a General Election just days away. The PNM has stripped citizens of their rights, but there is one right they cannot take away — the right to vote.”

On April 28, citizens used that right determinedly, as visually evidenced by the map of electoral results in which the UNC is represented in yellow, the PNM in red, and the TPP in blue. In a private Facebook post that he has granted us permission to reference, veteran regional journalist Wesley Gibbings noted:

[F]ewer people voted in 2025 (54% and in reduced absolute numbers) than in Covid-struck 2020 (58.08%). The UNC earned over 25,000 new votes and the PNM lost around 100,000.

In a country where the two main ethnic groups are Indian and African, and voting is often done along racial lines, the UNC's victory signals a significant shift in the nation's political landscape and a call for renewed leadership. With its campaign slogan declaring, “When UNC wins, everybody wins,” a letter to the editor of the online news site Wired868 from reader Rudy Chato Paul Sr. admitted that though he anticipated a change of administration, he did not expect “the shift would be as seismic” as it was. “Let’s change the way we define ‘ourselves’,” he continued. “Trinis first! Not Indians, Africans, Douglas, Chinese, Syrians”:

Trinidad and Tobago is a semi-pluralistic society. As such, alienating any one segment of the population—for any reason, real or perceived, as has been practiced in the past — is a dangerous road to continue along. That road needs to be abandoned, yesterday […] We are at the threshold of a new era.

Congratulations soon began pouring in from regional and international political figures, including from Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who posted on X:

Congratulations to Kamla Persad-Bissessar on her election as the next Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. She is a strong leader, friend, and U.S. ally who shares @POTUS‘s priorities on security and immigration. We look forward to building a close partnership for the future of…

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) April 29, 2025

Political analyst Hamid Ghany told the UK Guardian that had the PNM won the election, the “closeness” between Young and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro would have been “on the Trump administration’s radar.” As it stands, the PNM government recently lost the US-granted licenses allowing for the development of the Dragon and Cocuina-Manakin fields, two offshore natural gas projects between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela that would have been a boon to the twin-island republic’s economy. With the UNC's victory, however, Hamid said, “It is quite possible that there may be a different response from the Trump administration […] given the favourable disposition of Kamla Persad-Bissessar towards Trump.”

At home, meanwhile, members of the PNM, disenchanted with the party's poor showing at the polls and about to undertake the process of selecting who among its ranks will become Leader of the Opposition, were adamant that Keith Rowley renounce his political leadership of the party, which he has since done. In a letter to the PNM General Secretary, Young soon followed suit and resigned as chair of the party.

As far as the election itself went, Facebook user Denny Ablack felt that the process reflected well on the professionalism of the country's Elections and Boundaries Commission, while Gladston Cuffie identified some key lessons, the last being “There is such a thing as second chances. Make it count.”

Longtime PNM minister Penelope Beckles has been chosen as the Leader of the Opposition, making it the first time in Trinidad and Tobago's history that women will concurrently serve as president, prime minister and opposition leader. Persad-Bissessar's swearing-in ceremony takes place on May 1.