The former prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago sweeps the polls to take power again

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The party of former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has regained power in Trinidad and Tobago after a sweeping victory at the polls.

Preliminary results from Monday’s snap election show that the United National Congress, which is allied with the Coalition of Interests, won 26 of 41 seats in the House of Representatives. The opposition People’s National Movement led by Stuart Young, who became prime minister last month after former Prime Minister Keith Rowley stepped down, obtained 13 seats and conceded defeat.

Young had called the snap elections after ordering the president of the twin-island nation of just under 1.4 million people to dissolve Parliament.

Some citizens had opposed the appointment of Young as prime minister without an election.

Trinidad and Tobago will now be led by Persad-Bissessar, 73, a lawyer and teacher who was the country's first female prime minister, serving from 2010 to 2015.

“We have a lot of work to do,” she told supporters.

The oil- and gas-rich nation is struggling with a surge in crime and economic instability.

Persad-Bissessar has promised to increase the salaries of public workers, protect the pensions of the elderly and reopen Petrotrin, the country’s state-owned oil company. It closed in 2018 after more than a century of operations, with experts blaming corruption and poor governance.