The out­come of the Siparia’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions is the most un­pre­dictable of the four­teen cor­po­ra­tions that goes to the polls on Mon­day.

That’s ac­cord­ing to poll­ster Vish­nu Bis­ram whose North Amer­i­can Caribbean Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NAC­TA)

Ac­cord­ing to NAC­TA, the cor­po­ra­tion could go ei­ther way as there is no clear front run­ner—it is a dead heat.

But ac­cord­ing to Bis­ram, the rest of the cor­po­ra­tions are pre­dictable.

The two ma­jor par­ties are go­ing in­to the elec­tions with the rul­ing Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment the PNM con­trol­ling 8 and the Op­posi­ton Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, the UNC 6 cor­po­ra­tions—PNM won sev­en out­right in 2016 and San­gre Grande was tied con­trol­ling it as the in­cum­bent.

NAC­TA says the UNC faces a strong chal­lenge in Siparia on Mon­day and the PNM stiff con­test in San­gre Grande as the two par­ties seek to wrest con­trol from the oth­er. Based on the find­ings of the poll, no oth­er cor­po­ra­tion will change hands.

Of the 139 seats (two seats added from 2016) up for grabs, NAC­TA is pre­dict­ing that the PNM will win about 85 and UNC 54 plus or mi­nus a few. How­ev­er, in terms of vot­er sup­port, NAC­TA says the UNC has a slight lead. Bis­ram said clear­ly, per­cent­age vot­er sup­port will not re­flect the pro­por­tion of seats won.

The poll finds there is eco­nom­ic angst with vot­ers dis­en­chant­ed with PNM’s gov­er­nance, but they say UNC in its cur­rent make up is not an at­trac­tive al­ter­na­tive. Vot­ers are turned off from both ma­jor par­ties and turn out is pro­ject­ed to be dis­mal­ly low. There is not much en­thu­si­asm or in­ter­est in the elec­tions and the out­come could be a har­bin­ger of what could hap­pen in next year’s gen­er­al elec­tions.

The sur­vey was con­duct­ed by ex­pe­ri­enced poll­ster Dr. Vish­nu Bis­ram who has been con­duct­ing field work in Trinidad since the 1980s. Re­spon­dents were in­ter­viewed to re­flect the de­mo­graph­ics of the pop­u­la­tion in se­lect­ed con­stituen­cies.

Based on the find­ings of the sur­vey, PNM faces no se­ri­ous chal­lenge from UNC apart from Grande al­though the PNM faces a con­test in a few seats by Louis Lee Sing’s PPM in Port of Spain.

In Grande, the sur­vey shows PNM lead­ing in five seats and UNC three.

How­ev­er, three of those seats are close; a 6-2, 5-3, 4-4 out­come is pos­si­ble.

In Siparia, the PNM leads in four seats and UNC four with one seat a dead heat. As in Grande, three seats are close; a 5-4 or 6-3 out­come is pos­si­ble for ei­ther par­ty.

Else­where, no ma­jor change is pro­ject­ed ex­cept that the in­cum­bent par­ty in Rio Claro, San Fer­nan­do, Ch­agua­nas, and Tu­na­puna are in stiff chal­lenge in a few seats that the opin­ion polls show as close.

Turnout will de­ter­mine the out­come in all close­ly fought seats. Who brings out more vot­ers will rule the day. PNM seems bet­ter or­gan­ised on the ground in the cam­paign with lots more re­sources than UNC and PPM.