Trinidad opposition demands election recount

Voters in oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago have returned to power the government of Prime Minister Keith Rowley for five more years.

But main opposition leader and former Prime Minister Kamla PersadBissessar is contesting Monday’s tight race, demanding a recount in three Parliament seats separating her United National Congress, UNC, from Rowley’s People National Movement, PNM.

“The battle was so close that we are not officially conceding until we get the results of the recounts we’ve demanded in three key marginal constituencies,” Persad-Bissessar posted on her Facebook page Tuesday following the announcement that PNM candidates had won 22 seats in Parliament while the UNC won 19.

Persad-Bissessar’s unprecedented decision to not concede defeat in one of the region’s most stable democracies, where a new government has always taken the reins of governing the day after the vote, means Rowley cannot appoint a new Cabinet until a winner is officially declared.

Some analysts call the move a risky one for Persad-Bissessar, who was forced to fight back accusations that she was trying to divide the country’s 1.3 million citizens, who are mostly of Afro-Caribbean and East Indian descent, by referring to Rowley as a “Black man on the other side” during a campaign speech. Persad-Bissessar, who is of East Indian descent, insisted that she had referred to Rowley as “a blank man.” She said Rowley was the one trying to sow divisions.