The fol­low­ing is an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by the North Amer­i­can Caribbean Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NAC­TA), con­cern­ing its lat­est track­ing opin­ion poll in the run-up to the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go…

POLL: NO THIRD PAR­TY THREAT IN SAFE SEATS IN SPITE OF UN­POP­U­LAR NOM­I­NEES

Al­though sup­port­ers of both ma­jor par­ties, PNM and UNC, are dis­pleased with can­di­date se­lec­tion in sev­er­al of the so-called ‘safe seats’ in their heart­land, nei­ther par­ty is un­der threat of los­ing any of them to chal­lengers or threats posed by the en­try of third or mi­nor par­ties. How­ev­er, mar­gin­al seats could be im­pact­ed by the en­try of third par­ties en­abling one of the ma­jor par­ties to win with less than a ma­jor­i­ty of the votes.

This is one find­ing of the on­go­ing opin­ion track­ing poll of vot­ers con­duct­ed by NAC­TA.

Both PNM and UNC go in­to the elec­tions with 15 safe seats each in Trinidad and nine mar­gin­al seats; To­ba­go is not polled.

The poll finds wide­spread dis­sat­is­fac­tion and dis­ap­point­ment with can­di­date se­lec­tion in some safe seats that could see a low­er than usu­al turnout im­pact­ing on the so-called ‘mar­gin­al seats’ that bor­der them.

Sev­er­al nom­i­nees in ‘safe’ seats, more of them in UNC strong­holds than in PNM strong­holds, do not find wide­spread favour among vot­ers in their con­stituen­cies and na­tion­al­ly. Vot­ers say some are not “par­lia­men­tary ma­te­r­i­al”. Many vot­ers are turned off, and many tra­di­tion­al sup­port­ers say they will not vote be­cause they do not like some of the nom­i­nees.

Vot­ers are irate with un­pop­u­lar and un­known nom­i­nees be­ing foist­ed up­on them and of ‘car­pet­bag­ging’, nom­i­nees not liv­ing or work­ing in or near the con­stituen­cy or even known by vot­ers. Some of the nom­i­nees have ex­treme­ly high neg­a­tives run­ning in the 70th per­centile and high­er. Vot­ers have ut­most dis­dain for some of them.

The poll finds both ma­jor par­ties are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dis­gruntle­ment and in­ter­nal re­bel­lion among vot­ers in their re­jec­tion of like­able in­cum­bents and / or in the se­lec­tion of chal­lengers in some mar­gin­als and safe seats. This could put ‘pres­sure’ on a par­ty’s nom­i­nee say in Moru­ga / Table­land, Tu­na­puna, St. Joseph, Barataria, Ch­agua­nas East, Pointe-A-Pierre, and To­co / San­gre Grande—ei­ther be­cause of un­pop­u­lar se­lec­tions in the seats them­selves, or in neigh­bour­ing con­stituen­cies where low­er than nor­mal turnout is pro­ject­ed. The ex­pect­ed low turnout in some safe (UNC con­trolled) seats could have a rip­ple ef­fect in the mar­gin­als, shap­ing their out­come.

The poll al­so finds that vot­ers are very an­gry for be­ing ‘un­der-ser­viced’ and ne­glect­ed for decades in some con­stituen­cies.

There are more com­plaints in the op­po­si­tion-held than in in­cum­bent safe seats. In the uni­ver­si­ty town of St. Au­gus­tine, for ex­am­ple, not the least among sev­er­al ‘safe’ con­stituen­cies, vot­ers are ex­treme­ly up­set with what they de­scribe as ‘ne­glect’ and ‘aban­don­ment’ by elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Many old­er vot­ers say that over the last forty years, their best pe­ri­od of par­lia­men­tary ser­vice was be­tween 2007 and 2010 when the seat was held by Vas­anth Bharath. Vot­ers have vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing pos­i­tive to say about the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of John Humphrey, Ger­ald Yet­ming, Win­ston Dook­er­an, and Prakash Ra­mad­har, all of whom held the seat at dif­fer­ent times, since 1981.

In safe seats, as St. Au­gus­tine il­lus­trates, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans tend to hard­ly ser­vice their con­stituents. And no mat­ter the kind of rep­re­sen­ta­tion by the in­cum­bent par­ty or the qual­i­ty (pop­u­lar­i­ty and lik­a­bil­i­ty) of the chal­lenger, the reign­ing par­ty is like­ly to re­tain safe seats where any ‘cra­paud’ is ac­cept­ed.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the poll finds that in­de­pen­dent or third par­ty can­di­dates do not find much favour among vot­ers in this two par­ty po­lit­i­cal sys­tem. Thus, as an il­lus­tra­tive ex­am­ple, the well-known Car­olyn Seep­er­sad Bachan and In­shan Ish­mael—and any prospec­tive Pa­tri­ot­ic Front can­di­date—are not get­ting trac­tion at this time to se­ri­ous­ly threat­en the UNC’s hold on St. Au­gus­tine. But in neigh­bour­ing Tu­na­puna and St. Joseph, third par­ty en­try could hurt the UNC’s prospect where its can­di­date is clos­ing the huge elec­toral gap of 2015.

Third par­ty can­di­dates could al­so im­pact the out­come in the mar­gin­als of Barataria, Pointe-A-Pierre, and Ch­agua­nas East where close con­tests are fore­cast. With the elec­tions four weeks away, the out­come in sev­er­al of these seats is up in the air.