Gail Alexan­der

The signs of bat­tle were all present yes­ter­day. The flags. The colours. The fight­ing spir­it for one. The con­fi­dence of vic­tors for an­oth­er. And the num­bers in tens of thou­sands–on both sides. Any­one head­ing east­wards on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route yes­ter­day would have got­ten a "pre­view" of what might be in­volved in Mon­day's gen­er­al elec­tion bat­tle. Bat­tle­ground PBR ranged from Aranguez Sa­van­nah in Barataria to the Ed­die Hart Grounds in Tacarigua where the Op­po­si­tion forces and the rul­ing PNM held their re­spec­tive fi­nal ral­lies. Op­po­si­tion coali­tion sup­port­ers rolled forth from their Cen­tral and South strong­holds and oth­er lo­ca­tions, tak­ing over the north at Aranguez, birth­place of the UNC which turned 21 years just over a month ago. Rul­ing par­ty sup­port­ers al­so flowed in a red stream from their camps in the north and south to­wards Tacarigua, PNM's tra­di­tion­al venue for elec­tion grand fi­nales.

Yel­low (at Aranguez) and red (at Tacarigua) were the or­der of the day and each was spread wide and thick, end to end with­out ex­cep­tion, in the re­spec­tive lo­ca­tions. Zoom­ing up the PBR past Aranguez at 1 pm, that lo­ca­tion was al­ready lay­ered with Op­po­si­tion yel­low, as was the Tacarigua venue with PNM red at that time. Jam­ming the PBR, head­ing west com­ing from the Uri­ah But­ler high­way and points fur­ther east­wards was a steady stream of ve­hi­cles and DJ trucks en route to Aranguez with ju­bi­lant UNC and COP sup­port­ers. Head­ing west­wards down the PBR were emp­ty bus­es and max­is with PNM posters which had de­liv­ered PN­Mites to Tacarigua. PNM MP Kei­th Row­ley was among a cou­ple PNM can­di­dates who ar­rived late de­layed by heavy traf­fic.

ABOVE: PNM sup­port­ers in Aranguez yes­ter­day. Pho­to: An­dre Alexan­der

On PNM turf in Tacarigua, spir­its and en­er­gy lev­els were high. Tents bor­der­ing the perime­ter of the grounds were packed with sup­port­ers shel­ter­ing sun as the grounds swelled with peo­ple, thick­ly clus­tered. Bal­isi­er waved high. Huge flags stream­ing in the breeze. And every­where–red. "They have tried to copy us in every way–from our meet­ings to the way we bring peo­ple to­geth­er–but we are the orig­i­nal–we are the PNM!" par­ty chair­man Con­rad Enill roared. "This is not a time for ex­per­i­ment­ing or to try some­thing new–vote PNM!" he added. A very preg­nant Princes Town can­di­date An­warie Ramkisson laud­ed Man­ning. "We have the best leader, a man of in­tegri­ty he has been put through the fire and come out as fine gold," she de­clared. PNM leader Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning ap­peared com­plete­ly re­laxed, un­like a man on the eve of a bat­tle royale which could ei­ther mar his 39-year po­lit­i­cal ca­reer or give it his­toric fur­ther­ance.

Man­ning's head bopped to the mu­si­cal pre­sen­ta­tions from John Thomas and Mavis John, singing lusti­ly along with John's pre­sen­ta­tion of "God Bless Our Na­tion." PNM's bat­tle­cry al­so em­anat­ed from PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Mar­tin Joseph who warned, "Don't lime this time–vote and vote PNM! Re­mem­ber every vote counts." Light air­planes flew high above each camp trail­ing air­borne ban­ners. "We love you so we take good care of you......PNM!" "Vote for Change–Kam­la for Prime Min­is­ter." Up to 4pm, PN­Mites in red jer­seys at points from Barataria, San Juan and fur­ther East were still wait­ing for trans­port, or trudg­ing up the bus route from Tu­na­puna on­wards, to­wards Tacarigua's rip­pling sea of red.

Op­po­si­tion sup­port­ers in yel­low were al­so walk­ing along the bus route from Pe­tit Bourg to­wards the wide yel­low (and white speck­led) ex­panse of Aranguez Sa­van­nah over which the blimp hov­ered.

Yel­low UNC jer­seys out­num­bered COP T-shirts. White and yel­low flags flut­tered with spir­it. A mel­low vibe per­vad­ed. COP's Prakash Ra­mad­har ap­peared to have "con­vert­ed" as his sup­port­ers wore yel­low UNC jer­seys which they said they were giv­en this week. Op­po­si­tion lead­ers ad­dressed the crowd from a half shell stage to the Sa­van­nah's south­ern cen­tre which bore a strong re­sem­blance to a mi­ni ver­sion of the con­tro­ver­sial Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts. For the 2007 elec­tion, the UNC had held its fi­nal ral­ly at Aranguez fill­ing half of the Sa­van­nah then. The COP, fight­ing on its own then, had gath­ered at Wood­ford Square. And di­vid­ed, both had lost that elec­tion to the PNM.

Yes­ter­day both par­ties stood to­geth­er in Aranguez, on what their mem­bers claimed is the thresh­old of vic­to­ry for the com­bined Op­po­si­tion.

COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an said it was clear UNC's Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar would be Prime Min­is­ter. "This is the time, the time is now, we will do it...we are ready, let us do it now!" UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er al­so salut­ed UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as "the in­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter of the Re­pub­lic." Warn­er added, " I am proud to fol­low Kam­la as my leader, and as my coun­try's next Prime Min­is­ter....for all that Kam­la has done for us, let us win this elec­tion for her." Bunch­es of yel­low bal­loons were re­leased as Per­sad-Bisses­sar took to the stage. With Warn­er sit­ting be­hind and nod­ding in agree­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared, "We will win....! We will rise to­geth­er–we will rise!" Both camps yes­ter­day claimed at­ten­dance num­bers of 50,000-plus.

Yes­ter­day's crowds are not nec­es­sar­i­ly hard and fast fac­tors to go by, but from the pro­file of­fered by both ral­lies, the vot­ers of gen­er­al elec­tion 2010 may well be dom­i­nat­ed by youths. PNM's youth sup­port, which the lead­er­ship has re­peat­ed­ly boast­ed of along the cam­paign trail, was loud­ly in ev­i­dence in Tacarigua while their old­er coun­ter­parts hung out in chairs un­der the tents bor­der­ing Ed­die Hart Grounds. But over at the UNC's birth­place, the par­ty found­ed by Pan­day was al­most un­recog­nis­able where its one­time el­der­ly diehard "grass­roots" sup­port­ers were con­cerned. COP elite and pro­fes­sion­al types min­gled with their UNC blue col­lar bretheren and mid­dle class mem­bers from both sides. Pan­day said yes­ter­day he had not watched the ral­lies.

"We don't have long to wait again now," Pan­day added, re­serv­ing com­ment for to­mor­row when he will co-host IE TV's elec­tion night cov­er­age with COP's Mary King. Whether or not the UNC's cam­paign had been based on an "air" war and the PNM em­ployed its tra­di­tion­al modus operan­di of a "ground" war, yes­ter­day's ral­lies demon­strat­ed how mo­bilised both camps are. And as much as the mes­sage of an­tic­i­pat­ed vic­to­ry was clear from the Op­po­si­tion, the rul­ing par­ty al­so sig­nalled it will be a fight all the way to the last bal­lot on Mon­day night. Ral­ly­ing at the bat­tle­fields of Aranguez and Tacarigua drew to a close yes­ter­day with one in­di­ca­tion up­per­most. It re­al­ly ap­pears that way: close. (Gail Alexan­der)