Fol­low­ing its call for in­ter­na­tion­al elec­tion ob­servers, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is be­ing warned that try­ing to blame any­thing but it­self for elec­tion loss­es will lead to its po­lit­i­cal demise.

On Wednes­day, fol­low­ing an al­most three-hour-long meet­ing with Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) of­fi­cials, UNC Deputy Chair, Khadi­jah Ameen re­it­er­at­ed the par­ty’s call for ob­servers to over­see the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

How­ev­er po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj be­lieves the par­ty’s re­quest is un­war­rant­ed.

“We have a time pe­ri­od for an elec­tion and whilst there may be chal­lenges dur­ing the elec­tion pe­ri­od, I be­lieve that there is a lev­el of va­lid­i­ty in our elec­toral sys­tem and vot­ing process,” Ram­samooj posit­ed.

He warned, “I think we have to be care­ful with po­lit­i­cal rhetoric try­ing to shape pub­lic opin­ion. Yes, all po­lit­i­cal par­ties which have not been suc­cess­ful will be look­ing to blame the elec­toral process. But his­tor­i­cal­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go, save and ex­cept the time of the vot­ing ma­chines, has had de­cent elec­toral process­es.”

Ram­samooj said it is time for the UNC to stop look­ing to blame every­one and every­thing but it­self for its elec­tion fail­ures.

“The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress has failed to prac­tice winnable elec­toral strate­gies. Their pro­ce­dure of blam­ing every oth­er po­lit­i­cal as­pect as op­posed to their in­abil­i­ty to ex­pand their par­ty, to get more elec­toral sup­port in seats that are winnable is be­com­ing more and more ev­i­dent. The UNC must be able to have lead­er­ship that can win the gen­er­al elec­tion and this per­spec­tive of blam­ing every­body else, but the leader will con­tin­ue to lead to its elec­toral demise,” Ram­samooj ar­gued.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day he ex­plained that dur­ing the last two decades, there have been lead­er­ship changes in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which au­gurs well for the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral sys­tem un­der the EBC’s man­age­ment.

This sen­ti­ment was sup­port­ed by an­oth­er an­a­lyst, Dr Shane Mo­hammed.

Mo­hammed said the call for in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers is most­ly need­ed in coun­tries and in states where those coun­tries have gone through long pe­ri­ods of po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty and sys­tems of au­toc­ra­cy and au­thor­i­tar­i­an rule.

He ex­plained, “The key role of elec­tions ob­servers is to de­tect bal­lot box tam­per­ing, vot­er sup­pres­sion and po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence. Us­ing that premise alone, Trinidad and To­ba­go has not had a lev­el, ac­tu­al­ly we've nev­er had a sce­nario of po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence in the mod­ern 21st cen­tu­ry. We've had no ev­i­dence of bal­lot box tam­per­ing and stuff­ing of bal­lot box­es.”

Mo­hammed said the fact that the UNC and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots were able to score vic­to­ries against a sit­ting gov­ern­ment is fur­ther proof that there is no vot­er sup­pres­sion.

The po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst ad­vised the UNC to un­der­stand the re­al rea­son a large seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion re­fus­es to vote on elec­tion day. He said it has noth­ing to do with a lack of con­fi­dence in the EBC.

“What are the vot­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go look­ing for? Promis­es, com­mit­ments and poli­cies that will pro­tect their rights and free­doms, that are go­ing to em­pow­er them and give them op­por­tu­ni­ties for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. They are look­ing for what their liveli­hood will look like and how much a po­lit­i­cal par­ty will work to­wards eas­ing the bur­den off their pock­ets. Those are the is­sues peo­ple will be lis­ten­ing for that will help them de­cide on elec­tion day. Be­cause right now what we can safe­ly say is that our pop­u­la­tion is suf­fer­ing from vot­er ap­a­thy. No­body wants to vote for ei­ther side of the par­ty,” he posit­ed.

Mean­while, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion told Guardian Me­dia that it has no ob­jec­tion to in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers be­ing in­vit­ed at elec­tion time. 

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions via email, the EBC said, “Ob­ser­va­tion mis­sions can, among oth­er things, pro­vide use­ful ad­vice lead­ing to im­prove­ments in elec­toral process­es and changes and im­prove­ments in na­tion­al law and prac­tice.” 

It added that ob­servers aim to de­ter­mine whether elec­tions are in­clu­sive to all cit­i­zens, vot­ers’ pref­er­ences are re­spect­ed, elec­tions are com­pet­i­tive and the use of the right to vote is fa­cil­i­tat­ed in prac­tice. 

The EBC said it has al­ways fa­cil­i­tat­ed such mis­sions in the past and has gen­er­al­ly re­ceived ex­cel­lent com­men­tary on its ad­min­is­tra­tion and con­duct of the polls. 

“As a re­sult, com­mis­sion­ers and EBC’s se­nior man­age­ment staff have par­tic­i­pat­ed in and have even led such ex­er­cis­es re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” it added. 

The EBC sought to un­der­score that the de­ci­sion to in­vite ob­servers lies with the Gov­ern­ment and should the gov­ern­ment do so, it will fa­cil­i­tate the process.