Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

It's the end of an era

So what will hap­pen if Man­ning los­es to­mor­row. "A lot of peo­ple will be hap­py to see him go," Ryan said. There would be con­cerns among cer­tain el­e­ments of the pop­u­la­tion in terms of what they de­pend on from the State. It will def­i­nite­ly be the end of an era and a change to a dif­fer­ent style of lead­er­ship."

It will be trau­mat­ic

How­ev­er, Ryan said the re­ac­tion will be quite dif­fer­ent if Per­sad-Bisses­sar los­es. "It would be a mas­sive let­down for a lot of peo­ple in the so­ci­ety who have come to wel­come her pres­ence as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. If on May 24 the coali­tion los­es it will be quite trau­mat­ic for the sys­tem."

Which leader has what it takes to gov­ern T&T? Will Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning re­turn to Gov­ern­ment or will the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion be de­throned by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) coali­tion. In the next 24 hours the elec­torate will be fac­ing the polls to de­cide who will lead T&T. Polls and sur­veys have all placed the UNC coali­tion in a favourable po­si­tion against the PNM, who is seen by some po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts as the dark horse in the race. How­ev­er, when in­ter­viewed by Sun­day Guardian last week po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts warned that the elec­tion race is not over un­til the fat la­dy sings. Point­ing out that crowd sup­port do not win elec­toral seats, an­a­lysts made ref­er­ence to the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion where the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) failed to make any sig­nif­i­cant im­pact. While the COP at­tract­ed thou­sands of sup­port­ers at their mas­sive ral­lies and were able to con­vince 148,041 vot­ers the po­lit­i­cal par­ty failed to se­cure one seat.

PNM a hard par­ty to beat

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath dis­missed claims that the PNM was at a strong dis­ad­van­tage. "From where I sit I have nev­er seen the PNM as a dark horse in the race but rather as a horse un­til a few days ago. I will agree that the UNC coali­tion had peaked but the PNM was catch­ing up with them so much so un­til last week­end they were run­ning neck and neck." How­ev­er, Ra­goonath said the PNM was mak­ing some mis­steps on their cam­paign. He point­ed out that the lock­ing of the gates at the George Ear­le Park, St Joseph, and plans to im­ple­ment the Prop­er­ty Tax Bill were rest­ing heav­i­ly on the minds of in­de­ci­sive vot­ers. "Such re­cent in­ci­dents have some de­gree of con­cern among peo­ple who were sit­ting on the fence and not know­ing what side to fall un­to.

About Man­ning

�2 Served as Prime Min­is­ter from 1991 to 1995 and then 2001 to present

�2 Longest serv­ing MP since 1971

�2 Op­po­si­tion Leader 1986 to 1990

�2 Brain child of Vi­sion 20/20

Peo­ple are al­so think­ing that if the PNM wins the alu­mini­um smelter will be built and we can­not for­get the cav­ing in of the roof at the Pres­i­dent's house." Quick­ly point­ing out that the PNM chal­lenges may have giv­en the UNC coali­tion an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pull ahead again, Ra­goonath added: "The ques­tion is not whether the UNC coali­tion will have the pop­u­lar vote. They may very well have pop­u­lar votes but in our elec­toral sys­tem pop­u­lar votes count for noth­ing; it is seats that win an elec­tion and that is where the UNC coali­tion will have to deal with crit­i­cal is­sues. The ques­tion is how sol­id is the coali­tion in the PNM strong­holds and will they be able to wres­tle the seats from the PNM."

Al­so ex­press­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, Sel­wyn Ryan, who said the PNM must not be looked over. "The PNM has gained sig­nif­i­cant ground over the last few weeks. They are not an easy par­ty to beat. They have ex­pe­ri­ence on their side; ma­chin­ery and troops. Up­root­ing the PNM is not and easy task. I will nev­er sug­gest they will lose for one minute. What I will say is that both sides have re­sources. Crowd sup­port do not win seats; you need them but much more is need­ed than crowd sup­port. In the fi­nal analy­sis it is not the troops but how they are de­ployed. Both sides showed sub­stan­tial num­bers in po­lit­i­cal pot it is just wait­ing to see who will reign now."

About Per­sad-bisses­sar

�2 Set to cre­ate his­to­ry as the first fe­male prime min­is­ter ever in T&T

�2 First fe­male Op­po­si­tion Leader beat­ing founder of the UNC Bas­deo Pan­day

�2 At­tor­ney Gen­er­al 1995 to 1996 then in 2001

�2 Act­ed Prime Min­is­ter in 2000 un­der the UNC

Coali­tion loss not about Kam­la

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­thro­pol­o­gist Dr Gabriel Ho­sein said if the UNC coali­tion fails to reign vic­to­ri­ous to­mor­row it will def­i­nite­ly not be specif­i­cal­ly about Per­sad-Bisses­sar or the pub­lic per­cep­tions of her ca­pac­i­ty to rule. "What it will say is that the coali­tion was not able to use the elec­tion cam­paign pe­ri­od to suc­cess­ful­ly present a wor­thy and unit­ed front. This is some­thing T&T has been very skep­ti­cal about since 1986 so if the coali­tion los­es it will show a con­tin­ued skep­ti­cism about mul­ti racial, mul­ti eth­nic and par­ty coali­tion ex­per­i­ment." If PNM fails to con­vince the elec­torate to al­low them to serve an­oth­er term, Ho­sein said it will clear­ly show that the elec­torate will not con­done cor­rup­tion. "Cor­rup­tion is what an elec­torate is will­ing to vote on at the polls. Per­haps it is much like the oust­ing of the for­mer Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day be­cause of his au­thor­i­tar­i­an style of pol­i­tics the pop­u­la­tion will be ex­press­ing its dis­sat­is­fac­tion with au­thor­i­tar­i­an lead­er­ship."

An­a­lyst on COP leader:

He has a crit­i­cal role in coali­tion

"The COP has brought cer­tain peo­ple in­to the coali­tion who would not nor­mal­ly be there." Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, is fore­see­ing on­ly min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios for Dook­er­an and Ra­madar now.

"That's as far as it goes at this point in time. The UNC would have one po­lit­i­cal leader and two deputies in Par­lia­ment and it would de­pend on how much stature the coali­tion wants to give to the COP. "I al­ready heard fi­nance is­sues are be­ing con­sid­ered and man­aged by Dook­er­an. "The im­por­tant min­istry of fi­nance could very well go to the COP. This is a crit­i­cal min­istry in a gov­ern­ment." Ra­goonath said he ex­pects Ra­madar would get a high-rank­ing port­fo­lio in the new gov­ern­ment. "Le­gal af­fairs, at­tor­ney gen­er­al...I don't know."

He can bow out as el­der states­man

"It would be very se­ri­ous if he doesn't," Ryan replied. "You can't take a de­feat­ed can­di­date and put him any­where. If he has to be placed in a po­si­tion in gov­ern­ment, his cred­i­bil­i­ty could be af­fect­ed. "It's a risk Dook­er­an took and it shows he had courage of con­vic­tion that he could win the seat. "I hope he does," Ryan added. Mean­while, Ra­goonath said: "I don't know whether this would give him an ex­it strat­e­gy to bow out of pol­i­tics and take the role of el­der states­man. "It de­pends on how strong the COP is in gov­ern­ment. They could make Dook­er­an gov­er­nor of Cen­tral Bank." Ra­goonath, like Ryan, felt the less­er the mar­gin of vic­to­ry, the greater the ad­van­tage for the COP. "If the UNC wins 19 seats and de­pends on two seats to be­come the gov­ern­ment, it would give the COP an added ad­van­tage. "If the UNC wins 21 seats, it would re­duce the im­pact of the COP in the part­ner­ship." Ra­goonath said the Hamid Ghany Poll said that the COP will win Lopinot/Bon Air West and he not­ed: "If the COP brings more seats to the ta­ble, they will have a greater say."