Opinion
- Editorial- Commentary
Selwyn
Ryan: Winners
and losers (I)
The noise and din of the general elections are
now a thing of the past and analysts and party
strategists are busily trying to determine what
went right and what went wrong, who really "won" and
who really "lost", and which factor
or factors were decisive and which were not.
On the face of it, Mr Manning and the PNM were
clear winners. The Prime Minister took a number
of risks, both in terms of the timing of the
election and the composition of his team which
caused a lot of muttering but which either paid
off or proved not to be germane to the outcome,
given the winner-take-all tribal electoral paradigm
that informs party choices in Trinidad and Tobago.
The Prime Minister deserves his "coronation" and
the opposition its relegation.
Looked at from other perspectives,
however, the performance was not what the Prime
Minister hoped
for or what others feared. Notwithstanding the
fact that the party won 26 of the 41 seats, it
failed in its bid to get the 32 required to allow
it to secure the special majority needed to alter
the architecture of the Constitution. As Mr Manning
himself acknowledged, "we did not get it".
It is tempting to speculate that public concern,
which was amplified by the UNC-A's campaign in
respect of Mr Manning's alleged dictatorial tendencies,
that voting for the PNM might unintentionally give
the Prime Minister the power to change the Constitution
after only ritualistic public consultation, might
have led some citizens to sit out the election.
How many did so we will of course never know.
Mr Manning went into the election
with virtually a royally flushed hand. The Treasury
was bursting,
and as the saying goes, "money was no problem".
Not surprisingly, the PNM used all the material
and other resources available to it as the incumbent
to wage its campaign. Employment was not a problem,
and anyone who really wanted work could find it
in one of the many projects that the Government
had put in place over the past few years.
The prospects for the economy down the road were
also good, given the continuing rise in the price
of gas and oil. No dark clouds loomed over the
horizon. Objectively, Mr Manning and the PNM
should not have had to worry about the outcome
of the election. If the PNM did lose, one could
fairly say that it had fallen victim to Forbes
Burnham's law, namely, that any incumbent government
which lost an election was guilty of negligence.
There were however other worrying signals. Survey
data from multiple sources, including those carried
out by official pollsters, indicated unambiguously
that many citizens were not at all satisfied with
the Government's management of the economy as well
as its performance on various political fronts.The
data indicated that the dissatisfaction transcended
ethnicity, class, and party affiliation. The support
of the PNM middle class was soft.
Notwithstanding this, there was
an expectation that given the disunity and confusion
within the
ranks of the opposition, and the problems of leadership
within the ranks of the UNC, the PNM would get
the endorsement of a numerical majority, both in
terms of seats won and votes cast. It was assumed
that all the sheep would in the end go home to
Little Bo-Peep. The latter did not happen as fully
as was expected. Election statistics indicate that
the PNM won by a plurality and not by a majority
as it did in 2002. The precise figures were 45.08
per cent compared to the 50.06 per cent which it
won five years ago. The combined vote of the COP-UNC
was 342,466 whilst that of the PNM was 299,813,
which is 8,949 fewer than it got in 2002. In 2002,
the PNM secured the support of 308,762 votes with
a smaller electorate. What this indicates is that
elements who voted PNM in 2002 because they were
determined to prevent the return to office of the
UNC, exercised the option made available by the
existence of the COP. Many "soft" opportunistic
PNM voters are to be found in the 148,000 votes
that the COP secured.
It is important to note that the
PNM won majorities in 22 constituencies and pluralities
in four of
them, Barataria-San Juan, Chaguanas East, Princes
Town South and St Joseph. If we look at the outcomes
in arithmetical and not "algebraic" terms,
to borrow a term from Lloyd Best, we see that the
PNM would have just squeaked home with a one-seat
majority. One thus has to concede that the PNM's
flogging of the Opposition was not as comprehensive
as the raw parliamentary seat pattern suggests.
As the PNM assesses its performance, it needs to
ask itself why, in spite of all the positive
programmes which it has put in place over the
past six years to meet the needs of the people,
its image was as prismatic as it was. Was it
due to the failure of MPs to respond to the justified
expectations of their constituents as the Prime
Minister seemed to believe following his appraisal
of the Johnson poll, or was it due to the polarised
images projected by the leader himself, or was
it just a case of a Caribbean electorate's tendency
to demonise incumbents and to be unreasonable
in what it expects from a small government, and
its unwillingness to recognise that things such
as the increase in crime and the cost of living
are worldwide phenomena that have their root
causes and origins beyond the borders of the
small nation state.
-To be continued
Selwyn
Ryan is an article writer in Trinidad Express,
one of the leading newsdaily in Trinidad & Tobago.
Petroleumworld not necessarily share these
views.
Editor's
Note: This article was first publish in Trinidad
Express, Sunday, November 18th 2007. Petroleumworld
reprint this article in the interest
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11/ 18/07
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