As the po­lit­i­cal par­ties, ma­jor and mi­nor, en­ter the fi­nal full week of cam­paign­ing, a Guardian Me­dia-com­mis­sioned poll and oth­er poll­sters on the stump of every vil­lage and town con­ver­sa­tions seem un­able to pre­dict a clear win­ner be­tween the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) or Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

What the Guardian Me­dia poll says with a mea­sure of cer­tain­ty is that the UNC has made up ground, while the PNM, if not falling back, is not in com­mand in the view of elec­tors sur­veyed and analysed.

Like with any par­ty which has been in gov­ern­ment for ten years, with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ef­fect its pro­gramme for en­hanc­ing the lives of the pop­u­la­tion and to at least re­duce crim­i­nal­i­ty, that bur­den of un­der-achieve­ment hangs around the neck of the PNM, threat­en­ing to weigh it down.

At the same time, the free-wheel­ing Op­po­si­tion has been equal­ly unim­pres­sive in show­ing it­self as an al­ter­na­tive gov­ern­ment with sol­id, work­able plans and pro­grammes. With a one-term ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing prime min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has spe­cialised in cam­paign promis­es with­out se­cur­ing them with or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture and as­sured fund­ing.

The big ex­pec­ta­tion of the UNC is that the at­trac­tion to its plat­form of for­mer PNM min­is­ters and a ma­jor crime-fight­er placed in the crit­i­cal Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy can make an elec­toral dif­fer­ence.

What the PNM has is the know-how and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty to get its sup­port­ers out to the polls, where the elec­tions are won and lost.

The cam­paign­ing of the par­ties apart, the anx­i­ety lev­els of the faith­ful on both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide will reach high­er lev­els and greater in­ten­si­ty than be­fore now. To be sure, mis­takes will be made in the week ahead; and so too will there be telling strikes.

Of sig­nif­i­cance is that the two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal lead­ers are miles apart in their po­lit­i­cal out­look, ex­pe­ri­ence, track record and po­ten­tial for the fu­ture.

The UNC leader is fight­ing for her po­lit­i­cal life. An­oth­er elec­toral de­feat will sure­ly bring an end to her ca­reer. If, how­ev­er, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar pulls off an his­toric come­back vic­to­ry, she will re­turn with force; but so will the chal­lenges of co­her­ence with­in a loose­ly strung to­geth­er coali­tion. The chal­lenge for her will be to es­tab­lish co­he­sion and achieve qual­i­ty gov­er­nance giv­en the ex­ten­sive promis­es made and the com­pet­ing in­ter­nal de­mands.

Vic­to­ry for a Stu­art Young-led PNM will ush­er him in­to the un­doubt­ed po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of the par­ty and set him out with the po­ten­tial for a long reign, de­pend­ing on his ca­pac­i­ty to make a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the chal­lenges which face the coun­try. De­feat, how­ev­er, can bring an ear­ly end to his lead­er­ship as­pi­ra­tions.

The task ahead for ei­ther of these two ma­jor par­ties seek­ing to form the next gov­ern­ment will be more de­mand­ing than any oth­er faced by pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions. The econ­o­my has been hit by a dev­as­tat­ing blow be­cause of the loss of the Drag­on gas life­line with Venezuela. Too much can­not be said and feared of civ­il so­ci­ety be­ing swamped by crim­i­nal­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the Guardian Me­dia poll, the week ahead is one for defin­ing de­ci­sions to be made by the elec­torate. The state of play should make elec­tors con­scious of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make a choice; stand­ing on the fence has lit­tle val­ue.