As 2013 draws to a close and 2014 beck­ons over the hori­zon, it is to be not­ed that the coun­try is about to en­ter a pe­ri­od of in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tions that will make next year a dif­fer­ent kind of elec­tion year.Af­ter com­plet­ing four dif­fer­ent elec­tions in 2013, two sched­uled and two un­sched­uled, the chal­lenges of 2014 are go­ing to be quite dif­fer­ent for all of the ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties. The PNM, the COP and the UNC are all ex­pect­ed to have in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tions that will all use the phi­los­o­phy of one-per­son, one-vote.

This will put in­to the hands of par­ty mem­bers in these three par­ties con­sid­er­able pow­er to ei­ther en­dorse or rewrite the lead­er­ship of the ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties ahead of a gen­er­al elec­tion that is ex­pect­ed in 2015.

In the past, the in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tions in the UNC and COP have as­sumed na­tion­al pro­por­tions with po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tis­ing and live broad­casts that can com­pete with any gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. This qual­i­ta­tive shift from a del­e­gate sys­tem to em­pow­er­ing all fi­nan­cial mem­bers of po­lit­i­cal par­ties to vote for their na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tives has turned T&T in­to a su­per­charged po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment in which cam­paign­ing nev­er ends and se­cu­ri­ty of tenure in po­lit­i­cal of­fice is un­der con­stant scruti­ny.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers