RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) min­is­ter and MP Kennedy Swarats­ingh’s en­dorse­ment of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has drawn mixed re­ac­tions from po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts on its po­ten­tial im­pact in the mar­gin­al St Joseph con­stituen­cy, pre­vi­ous­ly held by out­go­ing PNM MP Ter­rence Deyals­ingh.

Re­spond­ing to the en­dorse­ment yes­ter­day, Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Dr Hamid Ghany, said Swarats­ingh’s ap­pear­ance on a UNC plat­form in St Joseph re­flect­ed a broad­er trend of move­ment be­tween the coun­try’s two ma­jor par­ties.

“There is two-way traf­fic at the mo­ment be­tween UNC and PNM mem­bers mov­ing be­tween par­ties. It is dif­fi­cult to mea­sure the im­pact of these move­ments, as their sub­trac­tion and ad­di­tion ef­fect can­not be eas­i­ly cal­cu­lat­ed. Per­haps, the deep­er is­sue is that de­fec­tions are not con­fined to a sin­gle par­ty,” Dr Ghany said.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said it was too ear­ly to de­ter­mine whether Swarats­ingh’s en­dorse­ment would ben­e­fit the UNC. He said changes in par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion do not nec­es­sar­i­ly in­di­cate in­de­ci­sive­ness.

“Peo­ple’s per­spec­tives on life and their un­der­stand­ing of things change with ma­tu­ri­ty and age. They may take a philo­soph­i­cal po­si­tion that is dif­fer­ent from ten to 15 years ago. They look at where they are now,” Ra­goonath said.

He not­ed al­le­ga­tions emerged against Swarats­ingh on so­cial me­dia short­ly af­ter his en­dorse­ment.

“I as­sume that the PNM would be at work try­ing to un­der­mine his cred­i­bil­i­ty, and it is in that con­text we go in­to a cam­paign. As to whether it will im­pact, I can­not say; it is still too ear­ly to tell. We do not know who the UNC slate is at this point. We know who the PNM has nom­i­nat­ed,” he said.

An­oth­er po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, felt Swarats­ingh’s speech on the UNC plat­form would sway some votes in the par­ty’s favour, es­pe­cial­ly since the con­stituents of St Joseph are grap­pling with con­cerns re­lat­ed to crime and the econ­o­my.

“It’s fo­cused on the St Joseph mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy, which was won by PNM by 800 votes. I found Mr Swarats­ingh’s speech to be very in­ter­est­ing. He came across as lev­el-head­ed, in­formed, with a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence. He came from abroad to make that ap­pear­ance. It may lend it­self to pos­i­tive re­sults for the UNC to the detri­ment of the PNM,” Dr Ram­per­sad pre­dict­ed.

She point­ed to eco­nom­ic is­sues raised on the plat­form, say­ing, “There is a for­eign ex­change cri­sis, the threat of re­moval of pen­sions, ris­ing price of food, and it re­sult­ing in crime, but yes, rais­ing is­sues on the plat­form augers well for UNC, and be­cause the eco­nom­ic cri­sis is the sec­ond largest is­sue in the elec­tion.”

She not­ed that par­ty shifts have been oc­cur­ring at low­er lev­els rather than at the par­lia­men­tary lev­el.

“This says it is de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, and peo­ple can choose what­ev­er par­ty they want. Many of these crossovers are not elect­ed politi­cians,” she said.

Over the past two years, sev­er­al politi­cians have shift­ed par­ty al­le­giance.

For­mer UNC sen­a­tor Tahar­qa Obi­ka, who served as the par­ty’s chief econ­o­mist in the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader, re­signed from the UNC and joined the PNM in June 2023.

Swarats­ingh, who served as St Joseph MP un­der the PNM from 2007 to 2010, de­scribed his de­ci­sion as one root­ed in con­cern for the coun­try rather than par­ty loy­al­ty.

When con­tact­ed on Swarats­ingh’s move yes­ter­day, out­go­ing St Joseph MP Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said, “I wish him noth­ing but the best in his new po­lit­i­cal en­deav­our.”