To­mor­row, a gov­ern­ment will be re-elect­ed, or a new one will take of­fice. I’ve cov­ered fraught and dif­fi­cult polls in Haiti, Guyana and oth­er places–about 20 in all, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly. Elec­tions man­age­ment isn’t er­ror-free. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion has de­liv­ered a good and cred­i­ble process.

Stu­art Young wants to avoid be­com­ing the short­est-tenured prime min­is­ter in T&T’s his­to­ry. In a two-term gov­ern­ment, he’s held two of the crit­i­cal posts that get low marks from the pub­lic. Pre­sent­ing him­self as an agent of change and turn­around is a dif­fi­cult sale. He knew it and was on the back foot ear­ly. The nixed Drag­on deal was not all eggs in one bas­ket, he had said. He’d sug­gest­ed, to some mirth, that un­pro­duc­tive time in gov­ern­ment was ex­pe­ri­ence gained.

At the PNM’s man­i­festo launch, no one from his min­is­te­r­i­al team joined him. His pre­de­ces­sor, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, did. The re­tired Row­ley was still par­ty leader, but that was a mis­take. He’s seen as Young’s po­lit­i­cal bene­fac­tor and the main rea­son he pre­vailed in the lead­er­ship con­test. It had the ap­pear­ance of Row­ley grand­fa­ther­ing Young.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, 73 last week, strug­gles to make it un­aid­ed up the short­est flight of stairs. She re­mains rhetor­i­cal­ly sharp and nim­ble on the stump, and her re­liance on phys­i­cal as­sis­tance–arm-in-arm es­corts to the podi­um–aren’t acts of chival­ry. I’d be con­cerned about whether she can en­dure the de­mands of a full term in of­fice, should she be elect­ed.

She’s lost two of her three pre­vi­ous elec­tions as leader. Some of her own MPs had said last year that their par­ty should turn the page.

Young is young but co-owns the fail­ures of his gov­ern­ment. One sea­soned UNC watch­er told me that be­cause of her dis­tance from the in­ner cir­cle and her grass­roots pop­u­lar­i­ty, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son of­fered a more chal­leng­ing con­trast to Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Beck­les-Robin­son lost an in­tense lead­er­ship con­test to Young and had lost a pre­vi­ous one to Row­ley. The counter to all of this, from both sides, is that it isn’t a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, and the choice is more than about Stu­art or Kam­la.

Old and young ap­peared in oth­er ways. This is our first Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) elec­tion, but we still had old-school elec­tion sweet­en­ing. The late mae­stro, Shad­ow, nailed it years ago in Same Kha­ki Pants:

Ah hear they build­ing a new fly­over, down by Uri­ah But­ler

And ah feel­ing some­thing, elec­tion com­ing

The Solomon Ho­choy High­way ex­ten­sion missed its ini­tial dead­line, got done in time for the elec­tion, but has had com­ple­tion nig­gles. Pledges in­clud­ed new homes with at­trac­tive fi­nanc­ing and be­spoke de­sign plan­ning. A school in La Hor­quet­ta. A road in Lopinot. New apart­ments in San Fer­nan­do.

The UNC had the punchi­er cam­paign. Their song, “When UNC wins …”, be­came an ear­worm. Videos of Afro-Trinida­di­ans say­ing they were switch­ing to yel­low drew sharp re­spons­es from PNM can­di­dates. Mon­ey and oth­er in­duce­ments changed hands, they al­leged. UNC cam­paign plan­ners de­liv­ered im­agery with more im­pact. Strate­gic front-row seat­ing and choice of speak­ers and en­ter­tain­ers made yel­low look and feel mul­ti-coloured.

The frosti­ness be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Bas­deo Pan­day’s fam­i­ly was no­tice­able to keen ob­servers at his fu­ner­al 16 months ago. All pre­tences were dropped dur­ing the cam­paign. Per­sad-Bisses­sar sug­gest­ed that the UNC had fi­nal­ly been ex­or­cised of Pan­day­ism. She said it was no longer a one-man show. That lack of self-aware­ness would prob­a­bly have elicit­ed chuck­les from for­mer MPs whose ca­reers she end­ed for hav­ing the temer­i­ty to run against her.

Mick­ela Pan­day’s Pa­tri­ot­ic Front looked to make a dent in the du­op­oly. PDP’s Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der called on them and Gary Grif­fith’s NTA to stand down. He cit­ed the cost of polling agents and said their low poll num­bers made them ir­rel­e­vant. The UNC coali­tion was more like­ly wor­ried about small par­ties eat­ing in­to their sup­port.

So, to­mor­row we de­cide. In­cum­bents’ true man­i­festo is their record. What they have or haven’t done will weigh more heav­i­ly than what they are promis­ing to do. Op­po­si­tion par­ties are as­sessed more on their abil­i­ty and readi­ness to ef­fect turn­around. Let’s have safe, un­trou­bled vot­ing and a swift­ly set­tled out­come.

Orin Gor­don is a com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tant. He can be reached at orin@oringor­don.com