RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

With around 1,070 votes sep­a­rat­ing the win­ning can­di­date from the main chal­lenger in the last gen­er­al elec­tion, the con­stituen­cy of Moru­ga/Table­land has be­come a fierce po­lit­i­cal war zone. The two ma­jor par­ties, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), have hit the ground run­ning, flood­ing the area with cam­paign­ers and promis­es. On the front­lines, their foot sol­diers bat­tle for dom­i­nance— with al­le­ga­tions of tear­ing down ban­ners, rip­ping flags, and clash­ing on so­cial me­dia.

Al­though the rul­ing PNM Gov­ern­ment says over $200 mil­lion have been pumped in­to megapro­jects in the com­mu­ni­ty, some con­stituents com­plained that they still suf­fer from ab­ject pover­ty, liv­ing in ram­shackle hous­es with­out run­ning wa­ter. Taxi dri­vers and oth­er mo­torists have al­so grum­bled about hav­ing to nav­i­gate pot­holed roads, youths have spo­ken out about lim­it­ed job op­por­tu­ni­ties, while fish­er­men and farm­ers have said they suf­fer loss of earn­ings with the ris­ing cost of fu­el and fer­tilis­ers.

This mar­gin­al seat has switched mul­ti­ple times be­tween the PNM and UNC since its cre­ation in 2007. Da­ta showed that al­though the seat has al­most 30,000 reg­is­tered vot­ers, in 2020, vot­er turnout was 69.1 per cent, com­pared to 75.9 per cent in 2015.

Be­tween 2010 and 2015, UNC’s Clifton De Couteau se­cured the seat, dub­bing it the “land­slip cap­i­tal of T&T” due to the num­ber of land­slides that scarred the lush coun­try­side.

In 2015, his­to­ri­an Dr Lovell Fran­cis cap­tured the seat for the PNM, but com­plaints about his un­der­whelm­ing per­for­mance led the con­stituen­cy to swing back to the UNC in 2020, this time in the hands of a daugh­ter of the soil, Michelle Ben­jamin, who grew up in Moru­ga.

Long be­fore the elec­tion bell was rung, the PNM and the UNC rolled out their full po­lit­i­cal ar­tillery, with both par­ties cam­paign­ing on the ground, hop­ing to reach vot­ers.

In the polling di­vi­sions of Bar­rack­pore, where the UNC tra­di­tion­al­ly had the ad­van­tage, Ben­jamin faced mount­ing crit­i­cism.

For­mer cane farmer and UNC ac­tivist Bal Dook­ie, of Rochard Dou­glas Road, voiced frus­tra­tion.

“We have al­ways been UNC peo­ple, but our rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the con­stituen­cy lev­el and the MP is very poor.”

An­oth­er Bar­rack­pore res­i­dent, Ram­s­ingh Sama­roo, lament­ed, “Since the 2020 elec­tion, we haven’t seen the MP. We get wa­ter once every two weeks and have to pay the same rate as every­one else.”

He said the near­by health cen­tre was in a mess.

“No med­ica­tion, fa­cil­i­ties poor,” claimed Sama­roo.

“A sim­ple thing as a CT scan, you have to wait till Au­gust. The req­ui­site is ‘emer­gency.’ Trinidad is not a nice place.”

In Rochard Dou­glas Road, Bar­rack­pore, res­i­dent An­drew Ab­dool de­scribed the PNM as “a waste of time.” He claimed vil­lagers have been suf­fer­ing for wa­ter since the PNM took of­fice.

“I’m liv­ing on a hill and we don’t get wa­ter. We have to pay the wa­ter rate, and it very hard,” he said.

Ben­jamin, who has been cam­paign­ing in the “swing polling di­vi­sions,” de­fend­ed her record, say­ing she has done her best. She said with the PNM Gov­ern­ment in pow­er, fill­ing the needs of every con­stituent was chal­leng­ing.

“Young per­sons have no op­por­tu­ni­ty. This has been the case through­out my tenure. We’ve tried road patch­ing, writ­ten let­ters in Par­lia­ment, and cre­at­ed tem­po­rary jobs through fundrais­ing,” she said.

Ben­jamin said the ma­jor projects done in Moru­ga, such as the Gran Chemin Fish­ing Cen­tre and the Moru­ga Agro-pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ty, have not ben­e­fit­ed the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens.

In com­mu­ni­ties like Marac, res­i­dents said pover­ty per­sists.

“It have a lot of poor peo­ple there and they need help,” said res­i­dent Fran­cis McKen­zie. “It’s some­thing they don’t get at all.”

Fish­er­man Nar­ine­dath Ram­roop, of La Rufin, summed up the hope­less­ness many feel.

“I nev­er vote in my life. When I vote, I have noth­ing but the same trou­ble. All they want is your fin­ger­print. I not go­ing through that.”

At Lanse Mi­tan and La Rufin, Ram­roop said fish­er­men strug­gle for sur­vival.

“They lock off rob­bing our boats, now they com­ing in­to our homes. My moth­er was tak­en and put in a deep freeze. The sea­weed stops us from work­ing. We have to fight for we self. No­body re­al­ly care about we,” he said.

Pen­sion­er An­tho­ny Padil­la, 76, lives in a rot­ting house with his grand­chil­dren, with no pipe-borne wa­ter.

“These politi­cians come and they go. We get a lit­tle im­prove­ment, yes, but life is the same. Some politi­cians are good, some bad. Michelle helps out a lot of peo­ple. This is she area,” Padil­la said.

In the PNM ar­eas, dis­con­tent­ment was al­so high, even among par­ty loy­al­ists who were seen cam­paign­ing for school­teacher Lisa At­wa­ter.

PNM foot sol­dier Bev­er­ly Birdie-Mor­gan said: “Af­ter elec­tions, they sup­posed to come back and meet peo­ple. Just as they ask us to walk they should re­turn to the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Asked why she was con­tin­u­ing to sup­port the PNM al­though life had not im­proved, Birdie-Mor­gan re­spond­ed: “We do it to keep the par­ty.”

An­oth­er PNM sup­port­er, Janeil Rag­bir, said: “We look­ing for bet­ter­ment but we not get­ting it be­cause our MP is UNC and our coun­cil­lor is al­so UNC. That is why we want to vote in a PNM MP.”

For­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Fran­cis Paul, now aligned with the PNM, ex­pressed hope, say­ing new projects were com­ing. He said the PNM has al­ready in­vest­ed in Moru­ga/Table­land in the last five years, build­ing a light in­dus­tri­al park, new roads, and hous­ing. Once the deep-wa­ter har­bour is built, Fran­cis said the lives of vil­lagers will change for the bet­ter.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts weigh in

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Shane Mo­hammed de­scribed Moru­ga/Table­land as a unique mar­gin­al be­cause of its di­verse de­mo­graph­ics.

“It is one of the most eth­ni­cal­ly di­verse con­stituen­cies in the coun­try shared be­tween Afro and In­do Trinida­di­ans, Merikin an­ces­try, Amerindi­an etc. This al­so in­cludes the di­ver­si­ty of re­li­gions from vary­ing Chris­t­ian de­nom­i­na­tions — Mus­lims and Hin­dus,” he said.

Mo­hammed not­ed that Moru­ga/Table­land was not on­ly one of the largest but al­so one of the most un­der­de­vel­oped con­stituen­cies in the coun­try.

“Of­ten left be­hind with­out an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of its cul­ture and re­sources that if de­vel­oped can be a rev­enue gen­er­a­tor for the coun­try — agri­cul­ture, all forms of tourism, fish­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing,” he said.

Since its cre­ation in 2007, Mo­hammed ex­plained, the seat has typ­i­cal­ly gone in the di­rec­tion of the par­ty that wins the na­tion­al elec­tion — with the ex­cep­tion of the 2020–2025 pe­ri­od.

“As such, the peo­ple have vot­ed in the di­rec­tion they be­lieve they would ben­e­fit the most from.”

Mo­hammed not­ed that Moru­ga/Table­land was not on­ly one of the largest but al­so one of the most un­der­de­vel­oped con­stituen­cies in the coun­try. “Of­ten left be­hind with­out an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of its cul­ture and re­sources that if de­vel­oped can be a rev­enue gen­er­a­tor for the coun­try — agri­cul­ture, all forms of tourism, fish­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing,” he said.

Since its cre­ation in 2007, Mo­hammed ex­plained, the seat has typ­i­cal­ly gone in the di­rec­tion of the par­ty that wins the na­tion­al elec­tion — with the ex­cep­tion of the 2020–2025 pe­ri­od.

“As such, the peo­ple have vot­ed in the di­rec­tion they be­lieve they would ben­e­fit the most from.”

He high­light­ed the ge­o­graph­i­cal chal­lenges that af­fect dai­ly life in the con­stituen­cy.

“The ge­og­ra­phy of the con­stituen­cy is plagued by land move­ment and is a haven for poor roads and drainage, which al­so leads to dam­age to homes and prop­er­ty,” he said.

“On the oth­er side of the con­stituen­cy in Bar­rack­pore, you have is­sues of poor roads and drainage but al­so the added is­sue of flood­ing,” he ex­plained.

Mo­hammed al­so point­ed to the con­stituen­cy’s high lev­el of civic en­gage­ment.

“It there­fore tells us the im­por­tance vot­ers place in their civic du­ty and their thrust to­wards want­i­ng ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion and re­sources. Vot­ers are aligned be­cause of tra­di­tion­al loy­al­ties re­gard­ing race/class and re­li­gion but al­so the be­lief in who they be­lieve will rep­re­sent them best in ad­dress­ing their con­cerns,” he re­vealed.

Re­flect­ing on po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry in the area, Mo­hammed not­ed that in­cum­bents have of­ten lost the seat, due to per­cep­tions that they were not giv­en prop­er gov­ern­men­tal sup­port.

“Hav­ing been in op­po­si­tion, it would be for the in­cum­bent to show where she de­liv­ered but al­so where she tried and did not de­liv­er — but more so ex­plain why,” he said.

Mo­hammed al­so ques­tioned the tan­gi­ble out­comes of the PNM’s claim of in­vest­ing $200 mil­lion over the past decade. “The gov­ern­ment in­vest­ing 200 mil­lion over ten years is good,” he said, “but has it pro­vid­ed long-term jobs — has there been de­vel­op­ment of hu­man ca­pac­i­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and in­fra­struc­ture?”

De­scrib­ing Moru­ga/Table­land as a po­lit­i­cal­ly in­de­pen­dent force, Mo­hammed stat­ed: “Par­ties must present a plan for the con­stituen­cy — the con­stituents who are unique in com­par­i­son. The shenani­gans which work for oth­er swing con­stituen­cies won’t work for Moru­ga/Table­land. It is, how­ev­er, one of those which will tip the scale in a close­ly con­test­ed elec­tion.”

Look­ing ahead to the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Mo­hammed stressed the strate­gic im­por­tance of the seat.

“The 2025 elec­tion is one of those where every seat counts and Moru­ga/Table­land will be one of the top three or four con­stituen­cies to watch in the par­ties’ path­way to 21 seats,” he said.

“As it per­tains to na­tion­al trends, in­vest­ments must go be­yond the ba­sics,” he added. “Op­por­tu­ni­ties must be cre­at­ed for youth and young pro­fes­sion­als, which in­cludes more than just fish­ing and agri­cul­ture but al­so en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion,” he said.