Political analysts: Voter turnout critical to decide who wins THA elections

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are say­ing the win­ner of to­mor­row’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions de­pends on the vot­er turnout.

In fact, a po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist says the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment may be count­ing on a high vot­er turnout for vic­to­ry.

At the mo­ment, To­ba­go stands at a po­lit­i­cal cross­roads, caught be­tween a “Red Re­vival” and a “Blue Wave” in a de­fin­i­tive elec­tion that both the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) claim is al­ready theirs to lose.

As the clock ticks down, both par­ties are guard­ing their num­bers close­ly, de­clin­ing to re­veal the specifics of their in­ter­nal polling. But be­hind the cur­tain of sta­tis­ti­cal se­cre­cy is a com­mon thread, an un­shak­able con­fi­dence, with both camps con­vinced they have al­ready se­cured the road to vic­to­ry.

The TPP en­ters Mon­day’s race de­fend­ing a mas­sive man­date. Though now fly­ing a blue flag and new iden­ti­ty fol­low­ing its split from the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) in 2023, the par­ty’s lead­er­ship is look­ing to repli­cate the his­toric 14-1 land­slide they se­cured un­der the PDP ban­ner in De­cem­ber 2021. It was a vic­to­ry that end­ed two decades of PNM dom­i­nance and fun­da­men­tal­ly shift­ed To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

TPP’s Chair Ann Natasha Sec­ond told Guardian Me­dia that the par­ty’s tar­get is a 15-dis­trict clean sweep, which in­cludes claim­ing the lone PNM Dar­rel Spring/Whim dis­trict, which they lost by on­ly 3 votes in 2021.

But asked what their in­ter­nal polls are in­di­cat­ing, the TPP Chair would on­ly say, “I’m not go­ing to dis­cuss ex­act­ly what we have dis­cov­ered. We just have to en­sure that our elec­tion day ma­chin­ery works re­al­ly well on Mon­day. But we’re look­ing re­al­ly nice and hap­py.”

Sec­ond said there are no ma­jor con­cerns about the mar­gin­als, even though in the last elec­tion, there were three seats de­cid­ed by mar­gins of be­tween 3 to 21 votes.

Asked how the elec­torate has tak­en to their cam­paign promis­es, the TPP Chair said, “What we have been do­ing is shar­ing our blue­print. We have been ex­plain­ing why we weren’t able to de­liv­er some things, and why we were able to de­liv­er so many oth­er things, and per­sons are very will­ing to give us an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue.”

The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) man­i­festo is an­chored on a push for near state-lev­el self-gov­ern­ment, propos­ing a new Self-Gov­ern­ment Con­sti­tu­tion by 2026, the re­place­ment of the THA with a To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment and Leg­is­la­ture by 2027, ex­pand­ed law-mak­ing pow­ers, fis­cal au­ton­o­my, in­clud­ing tax au­thor­i­ty and a share of off­shore en­er­gy rev­enues, and new in­sti­tu­tions for gov­er­nance and lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty. Be­yond au­ton­o­my, the par­ty out­lines an am­bi­tious de­vel­op­ment agen­da fo­cused on To­ba­go-cen­tric ed­u­ca­tion and dig­i­tal learn­ing, pop­u­la­tion growth sup­port­ed by child ben­e­fits and child­care, eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion be­yond tourism, ex­pand­ed high-end and eco-tourism, food se­cu­ri­ty, health­care mod­erni­sa­tion and broad­er so­cial pro­tec­tion, po­si­tion­ing au­ton­o­my as the dri­ver of long-term growth and re­silience.

Guardian Me­dia told the TPP Chair that there has been a no­tice­able re­cent in­crease in the crowds that go to the PNM pub­lic meet­ings. She claimed the par­ty was bring­ing in peo­ple from Trinidad to bol­ster its num­bers. But she said the TPP re­mains un­both­ered.

“One, it’s a democ­ra­cy. Two, they have to fight be­cause they do not have a gov­ern­ment in Trinidad, and they need to try to main­tain some sort of op­po­si­tion in To­ba­go. So we ex­pect them to use a na­tion­al thrust, bring out per­sons from Trinidad and all the ex­per­tise and so on to fight as hard as they can to at least main­tain one seat. We ex­pect that.”

But the Op­po­si­tion PNM be­lieves they aren’t fight­ing to keep their one seat, but there is a re­al chance of get­ting the ma­jor­i­ty of the 15 up for grabs.

The par­ty is bank­ing on a mas­sive groundswell of dis­con­tent, ar­gu­ing that a “silent shift” is un­der­way among vot­ers who feel be­trayed by the TPP’s per­ceived al­liance with the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, a part­ner­ship it claims has re­sult­ed in de­ci­sions that pri­ori­tise ex­ter­nal agen­das over the best in­ter­ests of To­bag­o­ni­ans.

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil Leader An­cil Den­nis al­so re­fused to di­vulge their in­ter­nal polling fig­ures, but does be­lieve they can get the eight seats need­ed for con­trol of the THA.

Asked where that con­fi­dence is com­ing from, Den­nis said, “As a po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion, of course, we will do our cam­paign­ing, we’ll be in­ter­act­ing with peo­ple, the peo­ple will talk to us, we will do can­vass­ing as well and so on. And based on what we’re pick­ing up on the ground, we are very con­fi­dent enough that the peo­ple of To­ba­go will be vot­ing for a change again.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Den­nis what he be­lieves was the cat­a­lyst for this ma­jor shift fol­low­ing an over­whelm­ing man­date giv­en to the TPP in late 2021.

“One, a high, high, sky-high lev­el of dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the per­for­mance of this ad­min­is­tra­tion. A high lev­el of dis­sat­is­fac­tion as well with the per­for­mance of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, es­pe­cial­ly the lat­est ac­tions, the new traf­fic fines, the radar and so on, which re­al­ly im­pact­ed To­bag­o­ni­ans and our psy­che and our liveli­hoods and so on very neg­a­tive­ly.”

He added, “And I think in ad­di­tion to that, peo­ple are buy­ing in­to the new PNM, as we like to call it, our whole new vi­sion, our en­er­getic and pos­i­tive cam­paign, us re­al­ly fo­cus­ing on our com­mit­ments to the peo­ple of To­ba­go to bring the kind of change and the eco­nom­ic shifts that we need at this point in time.”

Den­nis is al­so un­per­turbed by the re­cent loss­es in the gen­er­al elec­tion, cit­ing that his­to­ry would show that gen­er­al elec­tion re­sults are not of­ten repli­cat­ed at the THA lev­el.

“In Au­gust of 2020, the PNM won the gen­er­al elec­tion and the two To­ba­go seats com­fort­ably. To­ba­go West was won by a land­slide. And by the time we got to Jan­u­ary of 2021, we could not win the ma­jor­i­ty of seats in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly five months lat­er.”

Den­nis said that while they are re­ceiv­ing some sup­port from Trinidad via the PNM Po­lit­i­cal Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple com­ing to their meet­ings are To­bag­o­ni­ans.

The PNM man­i­festo for To­ba­go fo­cus­es on restor­ing what it calls pro­fes­sion­al­ism and gov­er­nance at the THA, cre­at­ing jobs and eco­nom­ic growth through ma­jor tourism, in­fra­struc­ture, agri­cul­ture and blue-green in­vest­ments, ex­pand­ing hous­ing, health­care, ed­u­ca­tion and so­cial sup­port, and po­si­tion­ing cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment as eco­nom­ic dri­vers. On au­ton­o­my, the par­ty re­jects sep­a­ra­tion, in­stead pledg­ing stronger leg­isla­tive and fi­nan­cial con­trol with­in the uni­tary state, greater use of To­ba­go-spe­cif­ic laws, im­proved rev­enue gen­er­a­tion, and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form be­fore con­sti­tu­tion­al change, fram­ing au­ton­o­my as prac­ti­cal self-gov­ern­ment an­chored in sta­bil­i­ty, ac­count­abil­i­ty and ser­vice de­liv­ery.

There’s a third par­ty in the mix with enough can­di­dates to po­ten­tial­ly win the elec­tion. The In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA), led by Dr Denise Tsoifatt-An­gus, is seen as the “spoil­er” par­ty. De­spite get­ting around 1 per cent of the votes in De­cem­ber 2021, the par­ty would have played an in­te­gral role in de­cid­ing the win­ners for Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant, which was won by on­ly four votes and Dar­rel Spring/Whim.

Dr Tsoifatt-An­gus told Guardian Me­dia that her par­ty is be­com­ing a house­hold name and her ex­pec­ta­tion this time around is for the very least that her 11 can­di­dates re­tain their de­posits.

For a can­di­date to re­tain their de­posit, they need at least one-eighth of the to­tal valid votes in the dis­trict they are con­test­ing.

The IDA leader said they re­ceived en­cour­ag­ing signs from peo­ple who are buy­ing in­to their vi­sion, and they even got crit­i­cism for not con­test­ing all 15 seats.

“Our vi­sion is dif­fer­ent from the oth­er two. We are say­ing, the top-down dic­ta­tor­ship type of ap­proach to gov­er­nance does not work for true eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment for the is­land. And there­fore, we are go­ing from a ground-up ap­proach, where we are giv­ing pow­er to the peo­ple, rights and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the peo­ple, along with mon­ey, so that they can be­gin their de­vel­op­ment on the ground, ac­cord­ing to their pri­or­i­ties and how they want to see it. And we would be able to sup­port them with ad­di­tion­al poli­cies that they need.”

Nick­o­cy Phillips, leader of the Uni­ty of the Peo­ple (UTP) par­ty, is the sole can­di­date for the mar­gin­al Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant seat.

Phillips has in the past lament­ed the cur­rent state of To­ba­go’s gov­er­nance, call­ing it a cri­sis of lead­er­ship. Phillips claimed that the wel­fare of the is­land is of­ten put on the back burn­er for per­son­al gain.

There are 52,857 peo­ple el­i­gi­ble to vote on Jan­u­ary 12. This rep­re­sents an in­crease of 1,641 vot­ers. The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has made two name changes to seats. Ma­son Hall/Mo­ri­ah is now “Ma­son Hall North/Mo­ri­ah and Bagatelle/Ba­co­let was re­named Ma­son Hall South/Bagatelle.

Po­lit­i­cal Sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath be­lieves it will be a close race in some of the 15 dis­tricts, as he be­lieves some mo­men­tum has shift­ed to­wards the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment at the turn of the new year.

“The TPP had the mo­men­tum go­ing with them un­til the start of the year. I have re­alised that the PNM has built up mo­men­tum as we start­ed the new year. I am not cer­tain how far that mo­men­tum has gone in terms of be­ing able to win back sig­nif­i­cant PNM sup­port­ers, and sig­nif­i­cant num­bers, but I think they have done a tremen­dous job in pulling them back.”

Asked what he be­lieves was the cat­a­lyst for this shift, Ra­goonath said, “I would think that prob­a­bly the PNM, while they were off the blocks ear­ly enough, their meet­ings did not seem to have picked up the kind of sup­port that they prob­a­bly thought that they would have got­ten. How­ev­er, I re­al­ly can’t see what hap­pened af­ter the Christ­mas hol­i­days. But clear­ly, when you look at the turnout at their meet­ings, their meet­ings were well sup­port­ed. One of the things that struck me was sim­ply that the PNM has got­ten or is spend­ing sig­nif­i­cant sums of mon­ey in this elec­tion.”

He, how­ev­er, could not say if more To­bag­o­ni­ans have grown dis­en­chant­ed with the TPP fol­low­ing claims that the par­ty has aligned it­self too close­ly with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment.

But Ra­goonath be­lieves the 14-1 loss in De­cem­ber 2021 was the To­ba­go peo­ple’s way of pun­ish­ing the PNM; how­ev­er, he still be­lieves the PNM main­tains a sig­nif­i­cant base on the is­land, and the par­ty will be hop­ing to bring that base back home.

The po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist said the PNM would be hop­ing for a larg­er vot­er turnout than the last elec­tion (56.97%), as it would mean that dor­mant PNM sup­port would be ac­ti­vat­ed.

How­ev­er, he main­tains that the TPP al­so com­mands a sig­nif­i­cant base in To­ba­go and that will lead to close races in sev­er­al dis­tricts.

“It’s hard­er to say what is go­ing to hap­pen now.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieves the TPP, led by Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, cur­rent­ly ap­pears to have the ad­van­tage head­ing in­to Mon­day’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions, but he warned that the fi­nal out­come will de­pend heav­i­ly on vot­er turnout.

Mo­hammed iden­ti­fied sev­er­al bat­tle­ground seats to watch, in­clud­ing Buc­coo/Mt Pleas­ant, Dar­rel Spring/Whim, Ply­mouth, Lam­beau/Low­lands, and Sig­nal Hill/Pa­tience Hill. He al­so sug­gest­ed that Bethel/New Grange al­ready leans to­ward the TPP, with the ques­tion be­ing the size of the mar­gin rather than the re­sult. He be­lieves the THA elec­tions could still fin­ish as close as 10–5.

He said pub­lic sen­ti­ment ap­pears to favour the TPP, point­ing to in­creased po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, en­er­gy, and an­tic­i­pa­tion across com­mu­ni­ties.

How­ev­er, he ar­gued that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) faces sev­er­al chal­lenges un­der po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis, in­clud­ing con­cerns over whether vot­ers are ready to see him re­turn to the po­si­tion of Chief Sec­re­tary.

Mo­hammed al­so said the PNM’s cam­paign ap­proach may not be res­onat­ing with vot­ers, as the par­ty “ap­pears to be grasp­ing at per­ceived weak­ness­es” in the TPP ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He fur­ther sug­gest­ed that Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris has not po­si­tioned him­self as a strong lead­er­ship al­ter­na­tive, say­ing he has con­tin­ued to play a sec­ondary role to Den­nis and has not been able to chal­lenge the TPP in a way that could shift mo­men­tum.

De­spite this, Mo­hammed stressed that every­thing de­pends on how many peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly vote.

He said the de­ci­sive fac­tor will be whether ei­ther par­ty can build mo­men­tum in the fi­nal hours and “bring out the vot­ers in their num­bers,” adding that the fi­nal re­sult “will lie square­ly on what the to­tal vot­er turnout is at 6 pm.”