The unsubstantiated claims of Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan and others of the United National Congress that the post-election runoff could give third and fourth parties a foot in the door of government and enhance the possibilities for vibrant coalition politics is not supported by the history of coalition politics in T&T and by political logic.
Modern coalition/electoral politics goes back to the 1976 poll, when the United Labour Front emerged as an amalgam of the left-leaning trade union movement and the rump of the Democratic Labour Party, the Indo-Trinidad political constituency.In the 1986 election, the coalition National Alliance for Reconstruction defeated for the first time in a general election the previously invincible People's National Movement, 33-3.
The predecessor to the 1986 coalition was the 1981 Organisation for National Reconstruction. Then there was the post-election coalition of 1995 when the Tobago NAR threw in its two Tobago seats with the UNC to give the party the majority it needed to break the Trinidad 17-17 electoral tie.The present coalition of the People's Partnership was created out of five political parties through the Fyzabad Declaration and won the 2010 general election handsomely, defeating the PNM 29-12.
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