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Saturday, February 22, 2025

On The Mar­gin

Politics and religion in San Fernando West

by

20150508

San Fer­nan­do West is ar­guably one of the con­stituen­cies which best demon­strates the role of re­li­gion in pol­i­tics.

Poll­ster Louis Bertrand of H.S.B. and As­so­ciates has found Hin­du East In­di­ans in T&T are more like­ly to vote for the UNC than East In­di­an Mus­lims and Chris­tians.

Cou­ple that with an ex­cerpt of po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Kirk Meighoo's pub­li­ca­tion of "Re­li­gion and Pol­i­tics in T&T."

He writes: "The Afro dom­i­nat­ed PNM was for many years able to re­tain cru­cial sup­port of the Pres­by­te­ri­ans and Mus­lims (cru­cial for San Fer­nan­do West and Barataria/San Juan)."

Meighoo pro­posed that PNM was able to grasp East In­di­an sup­port by ap­peal­ing to the two re­li­gious groups.

Un­of­fi­cial es­ti­mates sug­gest there are over 4,000 Pres­by­te­ri­ans in the con­stituen­cy and one Mus­lim pres­sure group, named Um­rah T&T.

It said there were rough­ly 5,000 Mus­lim elec­tors in the San­do West and 8,000 in Barataria/San Juan con­stituen­cies.

Con­stituents, how­ev­er, said race had no bear­ing on po­lit­i­cal sua­sion.

Maulana Suli­ma­mi, of the Mu­cu­rapo Street Ja­ma Masjid, has very strong po­lit­i­cal views. He agrees his re­li­gious group im­pacts the pol­i­tics of the day.

"You see this gov­ern­ment, Mus­lims come out to vote them and Mus­lims re­al­ly made the dif­fer­ence and the whole pop­u­la­tion­knows Mus­lims will make a dif­fer­ence which ad­min­is­tra­tion is go­ing to win the elec­tion (in 2015)" he said.

The imam, orig­i­nal­ly from Pak­istan, has been a cit­i­zen of T&T for the past 26 years and has vot­ed in each elec­tion since.

He be­lieves politi­cians are well aware of the cor­re­la­tion be­tween re­li­gion and pol­i­tics and have used it in their quest for pow­er.

"They come and they want to take pic­tures with us, they look for me, they look for lead­ers, they look for the imams, the maulanans and when elec­tion is gone they are gone too."

He said Is­lamists, just like oth­er re­li­gious groups, fall prey to emp­ty promis­es.

"Elec­tion is com­ing up and gov­ern­ment will give this and give that but where were we be­fore? Tell me! Where were we be­fore?" he asked.

He said as a re­spon­si­ble leader, he had made his con­gre­ga­tion aware of those tac­ti­cians, telling them the pow­er lies in the hands of the peo­ple.

"I am look­ing at what is go­ing on. How the Mus­lims are suf­fer­ing and how we will vote is no se­cret... time will tell," he added.

He called on lead­ers to fol­low the ba­sics of each and every re­li­gion.

"Speak the truth at all times, keep your promis­es and serve the peo­ple not your friends and fam­i­ly, not even the whole na­tion, serve the whole world," he said.

Is­lamists are known as part of a closed com­mu­ni­ty which re­mains loy­al in their unit­ed front but Suli­ma­mi said that did not mean Mus­lims would vote on­ly for a fel­low Mus­lim.

Of the nine elect­ed MP's in San Fer­nan­do West, four are Pres­by­ter­ian, two Mus­lim and it's gen­er­al­ly a PNM held seat.

Rev speaks

Pres­by­ter­ian Rev­erend Daniel Teelucks­ingh ar­gues there's no con­nec­tion be­tween Pres­by­te­ri­ans and their po­lit­i­cal pref­er­ence.

He said: "One can­not say Pres­by­te­ri­ans in San Fer­nan­do West are PN­Mites. You can­not say that. They are mid­dle class and are free to choose."

San Fer­nan­do West has giv­en the nod to the PNM on all but a few oc­ca­sions: 1986, 2000 and 2010.

When asked if hav­ing a Pres­by­ter­ian can­di­date would en­sure a par­ty's vic­to­ry in San Fer­nan­do West Teelucks­ingh said:"Re­li­gion does not de­ter­mine the win­ner. It could be a good Hin­du, a good Mus­lim, Bap­tist... They will vote for the best can­di­date."

Teelucks­ingh says the mar­gin­al­i­ty of the con­stituen­cy lies in the elec­tors who he de­scribes as more ma­ture and dis­cre­tionary.

"San Fer­nan­do West is more dis­crim­i­na­to­ry than that. They're more in­tel­li­gent and are look­ing for a strong per­son to rep­re­sent them," he added.

He said most of the con­gre­ga­tion was of East In­di­an de­scent.

"It's a mixed con­gre­ga­tion but it is pre­dom­i­nant­ly made up of In­do Trinida­di­ans to­day,but his­to­ry is to be blamed for that," he added.

Teelucks­ingh, who has served at the Sum­samachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church, Cof­fee Street, main­tains po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion is not based on faith or eth­nic­i­ty.

When in­ter­viewed sev­er­al elec­tors claimed they had in the past been di­rect­ed to elect a Chris­t­ian gov­ern­ment by their re­spec­tive church­es.

Oth­ers not­ed that when the Con­cor­dat had been a na­tion­al is­sue, heads of some de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools in­struct­ed par­ents not to be­stow their po­lit­i­cal sup­port to the ad­min­is­tra­tion spear­head­ing the agree­ment.

But Teelucks­ingh said that was not so. He ar­gued: "Pol­i­tics is not based on re­li­gion, it is not race based. It is class based."

And he said gov­ern­ment hand­outs would hard­ly work in a con­stituen­cy like San Fer­nan­do West.

"The mid­dle class peo­ple are so­cial­ly in­de­pen­dent from an eco­nom­ic per­spec­tive they are in­de­pen­dent and I do not see any need to tow any par­ty line," he said.

In the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal cli­mate we have seen many re­li­gious lead­ers weigh­ing in on the po­lit­i­cal di­vide.

When asked whether re­li­gion has a role in pol­i­tics he said: "The Chris­t­ian church... whether by a thin line or a wall, the Chris­t­ian church has nev­er sep­a­rat­ed it­self from po­lit­i­cal af­fairs."

Teelucks­ingh be­lieves there is god rea­son for that "when there is an op­pres­sive gov­ern­ment the church has spo­ken and must al­ways get in­volved, in that sense, in pol­i­tics."

Not a UNC seat

Evans Har­ry, 72, a de­vout Hin­du and chair­man of the Todd's Road Hin­du Tem­ple said re­li­gion has no bear­ing on his po­lit­i­cal choic­es.

"Since 1980 I have not shift­ed my vote. I have vot­ed for the prin­ci­ples of the man­i­festos of the ONR, NAR, COP."

He's your reg­u­lar mid­dle class con­stituent, a teacher for most his life. he said he has seen many MPs come and go.

One thing is for sure, in his point of view at least: "San Fer­nan­do West is not a UNC seat. It's en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent. It will go with the part­ner­ship, yes, but not a UNC can­di­date. I can­not see UNC win­ning any­thing here," he said in an in­ter­view.

Ac­cord­ing to Har­ry's cal­cu­la­tions, he is part of a block of 4,000 vot­ers who gave the ONR sup­port and lat­er the NAR the nod over the dom­i­nant PNM, a group, he says, which lies in the dead cen­tre... bear­ing al­le­giance to noth­ing but ethics and prin­ci­ple.

"When a gov­ern­ment dis­pleas­es the peo­ple there is a per­cent­age shift to that 4,000 which gives the op­po­si­tion vic­to­ry... this is the pat­tern of vot­ing in San Fer­nan­do West," he said.

Not a trib­al thing

As far as re­li­gion goes, there are the vot­ers who fol­low none but con­tin­ue to swing their sup­port, like fish­er­man Din­di­al. He said: "I vote for any­one of the par­ty that try to help the peo­ple."

He was born and bred in San Fer­nan­do and for years has been faith­ful in his po­lit­i­cal sup­port. "I am PNM and I am grate­ful to the PNM."

Be­ing of East In­di­an de­scent didn't have any rel­e­vance on how and whom he would sup­port.

"It's not about the trib­al thing in San Fer­nan­do. It's the love we have in San Fer­nan­do. It's not about race or the trib­al thing, it's the love that make it unique," he added.

San Fer­nan­do West vot­ing

1956 PNM Dr Win­ston Ma­habir

1961 PNM Saied Mo­hammed

1966 PNM Er­rol Ed­ward Ma­habir

1976 PNM Er­rol Ed­ward Ma­habir

1986 NAR Anslem St George

1991 PNM Ralph Ma­haraj

1995 PNM Baren­dra Sinanan

2000 UNC Sadiq Baksh

2001 UNC Sadiq Baksh

2002 PNM Di­anne Seuk­er­an

2007 PNM Ju­nia Re­grel­lo

2010 COP Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan


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