The Nigel Hen­ry poll, fore­cast­ing a 21 to 20 vic­to­ry by the PP over the PNM par­ty, is wrong. This is be­cause the poll mis­cal­cu­lates, or mis­rep­re­sents, the num­ber of "safe" seats which each of the dom­i­nant par­ties would win.

The PNM is like­ly to win the fol­low­ing safe seats: Ari­ma, Arou­ca/Mal­oney, D'Abadie/O'Meara, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin North East, Diego Mar­tin West, La Brea, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, Laven­tille West, Lopinot/Bon Air West, Pt Fortin, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West, Port-of-Spain South, San Fer­nan­do East, San Fer­nan­do West, St Ann's East, To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West. This is 19. The Nigel Hen­ry poll cal­cu­lat­ed 16 safe seats for the PNM.

If the above like­li­hood proves cor­rect, then the PNM needs to win two of the fol­low­ing sev­en seats to win the next gen­er­al elec­tions: Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Ma­yaro, Moru­ga/Table­land, Pointe-a-Pierre, St Joseph, Tu­na­puna, To­co/San­gre Grande.

The poll al­so has no in­stru­ment for mea­sur­ing trends, or more sig­nif­i­cant­ly, swings. The trend of vot­ing over the past 25 years, shows cos­mopoli­tan T&T, that is the non-hard­core PNM and UNC vot­er, re­ject­ing gov­ern­ments which prac­tise malfea­sance, mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice or vi­o­lent cor­rup­tion.

If the stom­ach of this cos­mopoli­tan re­pub­lic with­in the Re­pub­lic has turned against the PP gov­ern­ment, then there will be a swing suf­fi­cient to en­able the PNM to win more than two of the above sev­en seats. Swings, their ex­is­tence, ex­tent or coun­ter­mand­ing forces, can­not be sim­u­lat­ed.

Crit­i­cal­ly, the par­ties like­ly to as­sume po­lit­i­cal of­fice af­ter Sep­tem­ber 7 must let the pub­lic know what their ap­proach to de­vel­op­ment will be. Would it be sci­en­tif­ic, log­i­cal, eq­ui­table and sus­tain­able, or would it be based on nepo­tism, kick­back, gen­u­flect­ing be­fore the con­trac­toc­ra­cy and twist­ing the arms of state agen­cies and their agents to make them puni­tive, schem­ing, law­less, waste­ful, con­niv­ing, ly­ing, thiev­ing, dan­ger­ous to the pub­lic good, sub­ject to line min­is­ters and rot­ten?

A good place to start would be for all the po­lit­i­cal par­ties, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, the ILP, the PNM, the COP and the UNC to tell us their po­si­tion on the much dis­put­ed Debe to Mon De­sir high­way. The PP's plan to ad­vance work on this seg­ment has col­lapsed. And who amongst us, ex­cept the most hard­core fa­nat­ic par­ti­san sup­port­er, can­not see the fla­grant vi­o­la­tion of sci­ence, log­ic, law, ac­count­abil­i­ty and ethics in this waste­ful and de­struc­tive en­ter­prise?

To ask the ques­tion is not play­ing pol­i­tics. Lead­ers of all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, when con­tend­ing for po­lit­i­cal of­fice in de­mo­c­ra­t­ic na­tions, state their po­si­tions on key is­sues, sig­nif­i­cant cas­es, in the run-up to elec­tions. The best fore­cast lies in get­ting the right an­swers. Our cos­mopoli­tan re­pub­lic would align with any of the dom­i­nant par­ties which would run a clean ship of state.

Wayne Kublals­ingh