Not for the first time, I heard a UWI po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst as­sert (TV news item on Jan­u­ary 24) that the UNC on its own has a ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment. This is an as­ser­tion that I have heard and read of from oth­er po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors/ colum­nists. It is of course a fact that there are 21 MPs elect­ed to Par­lia­ment un­der the UNC ban­ner, giv­ing it a slim math­e­mat­i­cal ma­jor­i­ty in the 41-seat Par­lia­ment. How­ev­er, it is (or it should be) com­mon knowl­edge that un­der the po­lit­i­cal arrange­ments for the last gen­er­al elec­tion there was an agree­ment that the mem­ber par­ties of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship in Trinidad would con­test seats un­der ei­ther the UNC or the COP ban­ner.

This agree­ment saw Er­rol Mc Leod of the po­lit­i­cal pres­sure group MSJ and Stephen Cadiz of the so­cial pres­sure group YesTT be­ing elect­ed to Par­lia­ment un­der the UNC ban­ner. But un­less Mc Leod and Cadiz are now card-car­ry­ing mem­bers of the UNC, the par­ty on its own has on­ly 19 seats in Par­lia­ment, which clear­ly does not con­sti­tute a ma­jor­i­ty. Sure­ly, our UWI po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts, as well as our po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors/colum­nists, can spare us such sim­plis­tic analy­ses of our ex­ist­ing po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ty.

JH Charles

Glen­coe