Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s assertion on Monday night that citizens don’t care about the Cambridge Analytica (CA) affair is not a view that is shared by all of T&T.
“You know what people are telling me ‘Who the hell cares? Who the hell really cares?’” she declared, at a United National Congress (UNC) political meeting, eliciting cheers from her supporters—a natural response as she was speaking before a partisan crowd, in effect preaching to the choir.
On the matter of the alleged involvement of CA and its parent company SCL Group in data mining and election manipulation, Mrs Persad-Bissessar should use a better gauge of public sentiment than the charged atmosphere of a UNC public meeting. The same applies to the People’s National Movement (PNM) and all other parties that might be tempted to air this particular topic on their political platforms.
In fact, strong views are being expressed on both sides of the Cambridge Analytica issue, so it is not accurate to say that no one cares. The Netflix documentary The Great Hack and whistle-blower Christopher Wylie’s book Mind F*** have put this country at the centre of a controversy, the huge global repercussions of which are still being felt.
A glib denial couched in campaign rhetoric just won’t do when accusing fingers are being pointed at Mrs Persad-Bissessar’s party and the People’s Partnership government she led for five years.
There are just too many questions that have not been answered about how Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm found to be involved in misappropriation of digital assets, data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis of electoral processes, came to be linked to elections in T&T.
This is an issue that has taken on some worrying dimensions well beyond T&T’s shores. Cambridge Analytica was also involved in 44 US political races in 2014, performed data analysis services for Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in 2015 and worked for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as well as for Leave.EU, one of the organisations that campaigned in the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum.
All these are subjects of ongoing criminal investigations and the eventual outcomes will have implications for T&T, one way or another.
Therefore, instead of brushing aside the very serious claims that have been made about corruption and voter manipulation, with specific reference to “Do So” which was blamed for causing widespread apathy in the 2010 general election campaign, the Opposition Leader and all key political players in this country should have a frank and open discussion of this matter. Flippant dismissals of the entire affair as a fairy tale just won’t do.
This is not about apportioning blame, but trying to arrive at solutions to prevent any such interventions in the country’s democratic systems in the future.
If only for that reason, we all need to care.