Dr. In­di­ra Ram­per­sad

"The truth is that no one can pre­dict these elec­tions with any de­gree of cer­tain­ty as it seems to be a dead heat race in some of the crit­i­cal mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies." Since Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's un­ex­pect­ed an­nounce­ment of a snap elec­tion, the ques­tion on every­one's lips is who will win. The truth is that no one can pre­dict these elec­tions with any de­gree of cer­tain­ty as it seems to be a dead heat race in some of the crit­i­cal mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies.

Qual­i­ta­tive and Quan­ti­ta­tive Analy­ses

Nonethe­less, an­a­lysts have been mak­ing pro­jec­tions based on both quan­ti­ta­tive and qual­i­ta­tive analy­ses. How­ev­er, quan­ti­ta­tive analy­sis based sole­ly on a com­par­i­son with the 2007 elec­tion re­sults is not ad­e­quate. The com­bined UNC/COP votes mi­nus that of the PNM give a good in­di­ca­tion of the im­pact that the COP/UNC joint part­ner­ship plat­form can have on the re­sults. The ab­sence of a third par­ty split­ting the votes is sig­nif­i­cant but is on­ly one vari­able. The 2010 elec­tions bring with it its own pe­cu­liar dy­nam­ics most of which are qual­i­ta­tive and hence dif­fi­cult to mea­sure with any de­gree of ac­cu­ra­cy. As such, an­a­lysts must re­sort to ex­trap­o­la­tion of the pos­si­ble im­pact of these new 2010 dy­nam­ics.

Be­fore dis­cussing these new vari­ables, it is im­por­tant to note that we can­not dis­count tra­di­tion­al pat­terns of vot­ing based on race, par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion and op­por­tunism which are deeply in­grained in the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture of the Trin­ba­go elec­torate and are dif­fi­cult to change. Nei­ther can we un­der­es­ti­mate the val­ue of in­cum­ben­cy and bound­ary de­mar­ca­tion. The eth­nic fac­tor is still very po­tent for both par­ties as it ac­tu­al­ly de­ter­mines the cat­e­gori­sa­tion of seats in­to safe and mar­gin­al. Par­ty loy­al­ties are al­so crit­i­cal as many old­er vot­ers and their blood de­scen­dents are re­luc­tant to switch al­le­giances. More­over, there is al­ways a per­cent­age of self-in­ter­est­ed vot­ers across the eth­nic di­vide who veer to­ward the par­ty in pow­er (PIPs) be­cause of fi­nan­cial and non-mon­e­tary gains like of­fice, po­si­tion and pres­tige.

All of these would tend to favour the PNM in the up­com­ing elec­tions part­ly be­cause of the ad­van­tage of in­cum­ben­cy. Hence, it can be pro­ject­ed that both the PNM and the UNC will re­tain their bases in the safe seats but the elec­toral con­test will re­al­ly be played out in the ten mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies. Some would dis­agree with the list of mar­gin­als and may want to in­clude La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, D'Abadie/O'Meara and To­ba­go West based on the in­crease of reg­is­tered vot­ers from 2007 for the 2010 elec­tions. How­ev­er, giv­en the tra­di­tion­al vot­ing pat­terns, the eth­nic fac­tor and the val­ue of in­cum­ben­cy, it is safer to as­sume that these seats will be re­tained by the PNM. It is im­por­tant to note that the PNM starts off with an ad­van­tage of 17 safe seats to the UNC's 14 be­cause of the pat­tern of bound­ary de­lin­eation. Both par­ties are very like­ly to re­tain their safe seats as hard core sup­port­ers con­tin­ue to sup­port their re­spec­tive par­ties.

Tidal wave or tsuna­mi?

We now turn to those crit­i­cal but un­quan­tifi­able qual­i­ta­tive vari­ables which will im­pact on the May 24 elec­tion re­sults. The analy­sis here is based on the fun­da­men­tal but re­al­is­tic as­sump­tion of the for­ma­tion of a "tidal wave" in 2010 to which a num­ber of en­doge­nous and ex­oge­nous forces con­tribute. The use of the term "tidal wave" is de­lib­er­ate in an ef­fort to as­sess the swing to­ward the Part­ner­ship as "mod­er­ate" rather than "phe­nom­e­nal" in which case it would have been dubbed "Tsuna­mi." The en­doge­nous fac­tors in­clude new Op­po­si­tion and UNC lead­er­ship, Kam­la­ma­nia and the gen­der fac­tor, the uni­ty plat­form or coali­tion, the Row­ley fac­tor, is­sues which are up­per­most in the minds of the dis­grun­tled vot­er in­clud­ing crime, cor­rup­tion and prop­er­ty tax and Mr Man­ning's con­tin­ued blun­ders. The ex­oge­nous fac­tors in­clude the turn­ing tides in the Unit­ed States with the 2008 elec­tion of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, the wave of regime change in the Caribbean in re­cent times and the new­ly formed coali­tion in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Do­mes­tic fac­tors

The do­mes­tic fac­tors have com­bined to gen­er­ate over­whelm­ing, ex­treme­ly po­tent an­ti-Man­ning sen­ti­ments which trump all oth­ers in de­ter­min­ing the May 24 elec­tion re­sults. It can be viewed as a pow­er­ful un­der­cur­rent pro­pelling the tidal wave in the di­rec­tion of a vic­to­ry for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. The tec­ton­ic shifts ush­ered in by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's phe­nom­e­nal vic­to­ry in the Jan­u­ary 24 UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions trig­gered a na­tion­al mo­men­tum for change and a re­newed sense of hope for bet­ter lead­er­ship and good gov­er­nance. It there­fore came as a shock to many when Mr Man­ning de­fied po­lit­i­cal log­ic by dis­solv­ing Par­lia­ment and call­ing a snap elec­tion in the midst of a na­tion­al mo­men­tum for change. Kam­la­ma­nia and the gen­der fac­tor are close­ly in­ter­re­lat­ed. It was gen­er­at­ed by Kam­la's per­for­mance in the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions.

The per­cep­tion on the ground is that her charm, hu­mil­i­ty, sin­cer­i­ty and seem­ing com­mit­ment to good gov­er­nance ush­er in a new kind of pol­i­tics. The be­lief is that a woman at the helm would care more about the re­al is­sues and peo­ple rather than the usu­al ob­ses­sion with pow­er, mon­ey and of­fice which tend to char­ac­terise the male-dom­i­nat­ed pol­i­tics of the day. More­over, her ca­pac­i­ty to launch a crush­ing ten to one blow to the po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion known as Bas­deo Pan­day and her abil­i­ty to en­dure the rigours of the hus­tings night af­ter night since De­cem­ber 2009 through the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tion cam­paign un­til now, un­der in­tense pres­sure and scruti­ny, de­fy at­tempts of both the Pan­day and Man­ning cam­paign plat­forms to paint her as a weak, in­com­pe­tent fe­male. The his­toric rise of a woman to par­ty lead­er­ship would def­i­nite­ly at­tract some swing and new votes.

The com­ing to­geth­er of op­po­si­tion forces in the form of a coali­tion has gen­er­at­ed con­sid­er­able de­bate on the sur­viv­abil­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of coali­tions. This is a nat­ur­al con­cern since no one re­al­ly knows whether the coali­tion will sur­vive. That is al­most com­plete­ly de­pen­dent on the good will and com­mit­ment of the var­i­ous stake­hold­ers. How­ev­er, by broad-bas­ing the UNC, invit­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion and ac­cept­ing en­dorse­ment from labour, COP, NJAC, TOP, busi­ness in­ter­ests, re­li­gious groups and oth­er small­er par­ties, Kam­la aimed to coun­ter­act the eth­no-based pol­i­tics and present a Part­ner­ship which is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all sec­tors of so­ci­ety, many of whom feel alien­at­ed un­der PNM rule. The role of the COP in bring­ing on board mid­dle-class In­do and non-In­do vot­ers to make a dif­fer­ence in the mar­gin­als is al­so crit­i­cal. The im­age of a joint, broad-based, mul­ti-eth­nic plat­form can over­ride the fear of the coali­tion crack­ing.

An­ti-Man­ning vot­ers are pre­pared to take the risk since the over­rid­ing im­per­a­tive is that "Patrick Man­ning Have to Go." More­over, his­tor­i­cal­ly, when­ev­er there has been a uni­fi­ca­tion of forces�1958, 1986 and 1995, the PNM was de­feat­ed. The im­pact of the Row­ley fac­tor is two-fold. On the one hand it serves to con­sol­i­date the Afro PNM base so the par­ty could re­tain its 17 safe seats. How­ev­er, there could be sig­nif­i­cant back­lash amongst the mid­dle-class who has been ques­tion­ing Dr Row­ley's in­tegri­ty in his de­ci­sion to be part of a move­ment led by his neme­sis, Mr Man­ning. Be­sides, his plat­form rhetoric like "vote PNM not PM," and the "PNM could lose the elec­tions," may serve as more of a li­a­bil­i­ty than an as­set as the rip­ple ef­fect of these con­fus­ing, am­biva­lent mes­sages per­me­ate the mar­gin­al land­scape. Tra­di­tion­al PNM and float­ing, fence-sit­ting mid­dle-class vot­ers may opt to swing to the Part­ner­ship or not vote at all.

The stench of cor­rup­tion en­gen­dered by the Calder Hart/Ude­cott is­sue and the con­tro­ver­sial Gua­napo church com­bined with the dread­ed prop­er­ty tax have led to mount­ing na­tion­al dis­en­chant­ment with the PNM and Mr Man­ning. These are amongst the most salient is­sues im­pact­ing the elec­tions, na­tion­al­ly. They are com­pound­ed by Mr Man­ning's and the gov­ern­ment's con­tin­ued blun­ders even af­ter call­ing the elec­tions. These in­clude the un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous de­por­ta­tion of UNC strate­gist, Bernie Camp­bell; Mr Man­ning's neg­a­tive re­sponse to a na­tion­al de­bate; the pe­jo­ra­tive ref­er­ence to Makan­dal Daa­ga's dashi­ki, the more re­cent rant that "PM" in con­struc­tion is equiv­a­lent to "Project Man­ag­er" the de­mand for gov­ern­ment air-time in the heat of an elec­tion cam­paign and the brand new toll tax an­nounced just a few days ago. More­over, it is dif­fi­cult for Mr Man­ning to con­vinc­ing­ly ar­gue that he is more com­pe­tent to gov­ern when his uni­tary par­ty gov­ern­ment has col­lapsed three times and pre­ma­ture elec­tions were called in 1995, 2001 and 2010.

Ex­oge­nous fac­tors

In 2008 Trinida­di­ans and Caribbean na­tion­als vig­or­ous­ly sup­port­ed Oba­ma as the first African Amer­i­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date in the Unit­ed States. Cit­i­zens around the world hoped and prayed that white Amer­i­cans would dis­play enough ma­tu­ri­ty to tran­scend the racial ru­bi­con and al­low Oba­ma to clean up the mess left by George Bush. Sim­i­lar­ly, a size­able per­cent­age of the Trin­bag­on­ian elec­torate has been veer­ing away from the race-based pol­i­tics as ev­i­dent in the 90,000 plus votes ob­tained by the ONR in 1981 and the 148,000 gained by the COP in 2007.

As a fe­male so­cial mi­nor­i­ty hop­ing to top­ple the Man­ning

Es­tab­lish­ment, Kam­la's quest is sim­i­lar to that of Oba­ma. The chang­ing tide against race-based pol­i­tics can al­so work to­ward her win­ning the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies. The Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca has seen the rise of sev­er­al new gov­ern­ments in the last few years. This is part of a wider re­gion-wide mo­men­tum for change in coun­tries such as Grena­da, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, El Sal­vador and even Cos­ta Ri­ca which has re­cent­ly elect­ed a fe­male Pres­i­dent. These winds of change com­bined with the re­cent ex­pe­ri­ence of the UK and its brand new coali­tion ex­per­i­ment as well as the glob­al fi­nan­cial cri­sis al­so con­tributes to the wave.

The find­ings

The sta­tis­tics sug­gest that the Part­ner­ship could win. How­ev­er, the nar­row mar­gin of vic­to­ry for To­ba­go East (–100 to the PNM) and the con­stituen­cy's ten­den­cy to vote against the PNM in the pres­ence of ami­able al­ter­na­tive, could pitch the seat in the di­rec­tion of the Part­ner­ship. The same ap­plies for San Fer­nan­do West and Tu­na­puna. Oth­er coun­ter­vail­ing forces like re­port­ed house-padding and shift­ing of polling di­vi­sions 3,970, 3,971 and 3,972 from Pointe-a-Pierre to San Fer­nan­do West can coun­ter­act the Part­ner­ship's 701 lead in the lat­ter, nar­row­ing the dif­fer­ence and re­sult­ing in a dead heat bat­tle in San Fer­nan­do West. Tu­na­puna al­so re­flects a close fight with a mere 227 lead for the Part­ner­ship. The fi­nal pro­jec­tion would show the PNM gain­ing a to­tal of 17 safe seats plus Lopinot/Bon Air and pos­si­bly San Fer­nan­do West which equals 19.

To­ba­go East and Tu­na­puna could veer to­ward the Part­ner­ship bring­ing its to­tal to 22. Should the Part­ner­ship win San Fer­nan­do West, its to­tal would go to 23. Should it lose Tu­na­puna and San Fer­nan­do West, its to­tal would re­duce to 21. We can thus safe­ly project a Part­ner­ship vic­to­ry of be­tween 21 to 23 seats. What is cer­tain is that the PNM will not re­tain its 26 seats and the Part­ner­ship would se­cure the pop­u­lar vote.

Method­ol­o­gy

Hav­ing iden­ti­fied the fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the tidal wave, it is now nec­es­sary to as­sess it. Mea­sur­ing the im­pact of this wave is a most for­mi­da­ble task. A sim­ple method­ol­o­gy us­ing the fol­low­ing steps can project the im­pact of a con­ser­v­a­tive five per cent wave in each con­stituen­cy as out­lined in Ta­ble II be­low:

1. Col­umn A iden­ti­fies the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies.

2. Col­umn B lists the num­ber of EBC reg­is­tered vot­ers for each con­stituen­cy for 2010

3. Col­umn C cal­cu­lates the num­ber of UNC plus COP or TUF/DAC vot­ers for 2007 in each con­stituen­cy.

4. Col­umn D sub­tracts the com­bined 2007 UNC/COP or TUF/DAC votes from that of the PNM.

5. Col­umn E sub­tracts the com­bined UNC/COP or TUF/DAC votes of 2007 from the to­tal num­ber of reg­is­tered vot­ers 2010 to avoid du­pli­ca­tion of 2007 UNC/COP votes and to cal­cu­late the to­tal num­ber of PNM, non-vot­ers and new vot­ers for 2010.

6. Col­umn F cal­cu­lates the five per cent wave from the re­sults of Col­umn E above.