Political forecaster: UNC on course for victory if election called now

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Labour mar­ket sta­tis­ti­cian and po­lit­i­cal fore­cast­ing spe­cial­ist Dr Justin Pierre says the Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) re­mains ahead one year in­to its term, ar­gu­ing that if a gen­er­al elec­tion were called to­day, the rul­ing par­ty would still se­cure vic­to­ry.

“If an elec­tion was called to­day, from our da­ta, we be­lieve that she would be suc­cess­ful,” he said.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, ex­act­ly one year to the day the UNC won the gen­er­al elec­tion, Pierre, a Di­rec­tor of Re­search at con­sul­tan­cy firm Dunn Pierre Bar­nett and Com­pa­ny, point­ed to da­ta-dri­ven analy­sis sug­gest­ing sus­tained elec­toral strength for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Pierre said da­ta gath­ered since last year’s poll shows Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s pop­u­lar­i­ty trend­ing up­ward, par­tic­u­lar­ly among women.

“Based on the da­ta we’ve seen, the Prime Min­is­ter has in­creas­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty,” he not­ed, adding that she now ranks among the more pop­u­lar lead­ers in the re­gion.

He at­trib­uted that growth to strong mes­sag­ing di­rect­ed at the UNC’s base, which he de­scribed as both loy­al and ex­pand­ing.

“One of the main rea­sons is her base; it is strong, and her mes­sage res­onates with that base.”

He added that UNC sup­port­ers over­whelm­ing­ly view Per­sad-Bisses­sar as the le­git­i­mate and rep­re­sen­ta­tive leader of the par­ty, re­in­forc­ing in­ter­nal co­he­sion.

In con­trast, Pierre point­ed to on­go­ing un­cer­tain­ty with­in the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) as a ma­jor vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

“From our da­ta, there are is­sues, maybe in­fight­ing, maybe not a clear lead­er­ship pyra­mid,” he said. “Be­cause of that lack of a des­ig­nat­ed leader, they will lose votes.”

Pierre sug­gest­ed that dis­uni­ty at the top con­tin­ues to erode con­fi­dence among tra­di­tion­al sup­port­ers, echo­ing trends he said were ev­i­dent in the last elec­tion.

Last year, Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les be­came the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal leader and Op­po­si­tion leader, the lat­ter came af­ter a unan­i­mous Gen­er­al Coun­cil de­ci­sion. Beck­les was the sole nom­i­nee for the lead­er­ship of the PNM.

Pierre, who cor­rect­ly pre­dict­ed a UNC vic­to­ry ahead of the last gen­er­al elec­tion, stressed that his con­clu­sions are ground­ed strict­ly in em­pir­i­cal analy­sis.

“As sta­tis­ti­cians, we fol­low the da­ta,” he said. “And the da­ta is show­ing that the UNC has a strong base, a de­ci­sive leader, and clear di­rec­tion.”