Senior Reporter
dareece.polo@guardian.co.tt
The People’s National Movement (PNM) could face an uphill battle in the next general election if Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley stays at the helm, say political analysts Professor Hamid Ghany and Dr Winford James.
Two days after the PNM’s 7-7 tie with the United National Congress (UNC) in Local Government Elections (LGE), Ghany, Professor of Constitutional Affairs and Parliamentary Studies at the University of the West Indies, said the electorate could see Dr Rowley shift his focus towards finding a replacement because if he doesn’t bow out gracefully, PNM supporters may be at a disadvantage.
“The PNM with a new leader going into 2025 will be a formidable force. The PNM going into 2025 with Dr Rowley again as the leader will have some challenges for many of the PNM supporters. They sent a message on Monday, and I think Dr Rowley may want to consider—he’s brought the party this far, he may want to be able to carry the party close enough to the election where they can find a new leader and then let the party go into a campaign with a new leader that will clearly make them stronger and put pressure on the UNC,” Ghany said.
This sentiment was echoed by James, who said succession planning could be the way forward for Dr Rowley. However, he said general elections are too far off to make declarations on the future leadership of the PNM or UNC.
Moreover, he said neither Dr Rowley nor UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar have much to celebrate based on Monday’s results.
“There is no real mandate coming from the electorate with respect to any of the positions that they had before the elections. There may be more people voting UNC, yes, but that carries us nowhere in this country,” James said.
“It is not even a basis for constitutional reform. If you have a tie happening all the time, then you will have to break that tie somehow and therefore you will need to amend the Constitution in relation to that fact but nothing about the results here give anybody a basis for crowing about what they achieved in terms of numbers.”
Professor Ghany said the UNC’c claim of the popular vote marks some measure of success, as he recalled that preliminary results by the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC), prior to recounts, saw the UNC receiving 173,691 votes while the PNM got 130,868 votes.
James did not agree, as he said there was no real impact since the deadlock remained.
“She has not been winning elections but she has been retaining her base. Constitutionally and politically, there is no real advantage except from a psychological point of view,” he said.
On the road to general elections in 2025, Ghany believes the electorate is seeing a transformation in the Opposition Leader’s politicking.
He said gone are the days when Persad-Bissessar amassed support by presenting herself as a mother to the nation. Now, he said “load up the ‘matic” has become a battle cry that, despite harsh critique from the PNM, has seemingly resonated with the population.
He was referencing Persad-Bissessar’s proposal to bring stand-your-ground legislation to combat crime, which was a central theme during her LGE campaign.
“Mrs Persad-Bissessar is trying to rebrand herself and by adopting the more belligerent approach, she has earned more success. The former maternal approach has failed and will continue to fail. People want to fight back and they want to find a way to fight back. She may very well have walked into something that could bear political fruit for her,” Ghany said.
He added that to rival this, the Government has to wrestle with and control the crime situation.
However, James said the results do not provide any proof that citizens were in support of Persad-Bissessar’s campaign promise.
Considering that one day in politics is a lifetime, James said a lot can happen between now and the next polls which could sway voters in any direction.