JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 10, 2025

TOP can only win alone

...PP con­nec­tion a li­a­bil­i­ty for the par­ty–an­a­lyst

by

20130119

As the clock winds down for the hot­ly con­test­ed To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James feels if the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) were an in­de­pen­dent par­ty they would win to­mor­row's polls. James made his com­ments based on his ob­ser­va­tions of the elec­tion cam­paign and con­tro­ver­sial de­bate be­tween the three po­lit­i­cal lead­ers con­test­ing the Jan­u­ary 21 polls.

The three men who are vy­ing for the post of chief sec­re­tary in the THA are To­ba­go's leader of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Orville Lon­don, Ho­choy Charles, head of The Plat­form for Truth (TPT), and Ash­worth Jack, who leads TOP.

TOP is one of five par­ties in the coali­tion Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. Twelve seats are up for grabs.

Cur­rent­ly out of the coun­try on busi­ness, James, when asked on Wednes­day in an e-mail if the TOP had re­mained fo­cused on To­ba­go and not be­come close­ly tied with the PP whether they would win the THA elec­tion, re­spond­ed: "Yes, def­i­nite­ly they would have won."

James: Jack a pup­pet

James said, "Jack's ties with the PP have been af­fect­ing his charges neg­a­tive­ly. The per­cep­tion is that he (Jack) is a pup­pet who will let UNC run To­ba­go. The PP dam­age is ir­re­versible," he ex­plained. James said the out­come of this elec­tion will be used as a gauge in the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion and 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion. If the PNM wins the elec­tion, To­ba­go will be­come a PNM strong­hold, James warned.

Poll­ster Vish­nu Bis­ram, di­rec­tor of the North Amer­i­can Caribbean Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (Nac­ta) al­so gave his views, say­ing if TOP does not win the elec­tion or make gains in seats, pres­sure will be on Jack to step down as leader. Bis­ram said Jack was fac­ing stiff com­pe­ti­tion from PNM's can­di­date for Prov­i­dence/Ma­son Hall Shel­don Cun­ning­ham, his main ri­val.

For Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Bis­ram said, a vic­to­ry is cru­cial to stem the tide of her de­clin­ing ap­proval rat­ing and sup­port for the PP.

Bis­ram: if TOP los­es, it's the be­gin­ning of the end for PP

"If TOP does not do well, it could mark the be­gin­ning of the end for the PP as it could start a trend for the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in Ju­ly." Bis­ram said a re­cent Nac­ta poll does not au­gur well for the PP ei­ther in Trinidad (es­pe­cial­ly in the East/West cor­ri­dor) or the To­ba­go East and West seats.

"The PP could lose sev­er­al seats in Ju­ly's elec­tion. A vic­to­ry in To­ba­go for TOP will help to stem the tide against the PP in Trinidad and stop the po­lit­i­cal haem­or­rhag­ing with­in its base and the part­ner­ship. That is why Kam­la has been vis­it­ing the is­land reg­u­lar­ly, hold­ing Cab­i­net meet­ings and cam­paign­ing hard."

Bis­ram said while Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been an as­set to the TOP and boost­ing morale among sup­port­ers, PNM and TPT sup­port­ers strong­ly op­pose her pres­ence in To­ba­go. With a vot­ing pop­u­la­tion of 46,000, James pre­dict­ed that the vot­er turnout will be high­er when com­pared to the 2009 elec­tion, giv­en the stakes and based on the in­tro­duc­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion re­form is­sue. How­ev­er, James viewed Charles as "liv­ing in the past."

Lead­ers with cred­i­bil­i­ty prob­lems

Of the three lead­ers, James ex­plained that they all have cred­i­bil­i­ty prob­lems. Lon­don, who held the post of chief sec­re­tary in the THA for 12 years, had lit­tle to show of To­ba­go's de­vel­op­ment. The per­cep­tion of Lon­don, James said, is that "he has been favour­ing friends and fam­i­ly and vic­tim­is­ing non-sup­port­ers." A poll from So­lu­tion by Sim­u­la­tion re­cent­ly sug­gest­ed the in­cum­bent PNM would score a land­slide 11 to one vic­to­ry.

James said pro­vid­ing the poll was prop­er­ly done, it showed that peo­ple are tak­ing the PNM's po­si­tion se­ri­ous­ly due to the reck­less ac­tions of the PP Gov­ern­ment.

Asked if the Sec­tion 34 mat­ter, the fail­ure of Jack to de­clare his as­sets to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the con­struc­tion of his new home, the cut­ting of To­ba­go's so­cial pro­grammes, Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin's shop­ping card fi­as­co, were some of the is­sues that caused TOP to lose ground in the last few months, James said while these is­sues raised con­cern, the cut­ting of so­cial pro­grammes was with­out a doubt the biggest is­sue To­bag­o­ni­ans were not in favour with.

"Who cut the pro­grammes? The PNM is in charge, not the TOP." James said the three lead­ers need­ed to come up with a so­cio-eco­nom­ic plan that would trans­form the is­land and make it self de­pen­dent. "They need to push for a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic fed­er­al struc­ture. Ex­pand the econ­o­my."

'Some­times polls miss the mark'

On Mon­day, in her re­sponse to opin­ion polls, Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed that TOP need­ed to do a lot more work. James said at this point noth­ing more can be done and it showed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was wor­ried. "But I don't think she is de­clar­ing de­feat. Some­times polls miss the mark." With hours away from vot­ers go­ing to the poll, Bis­ram said it was a keen­ly watched elec­tion with a lot at stake for the na­tion­al lead­ers of the PNM and PP.

As for Charles, Bis­ram said he had reached the end of his po­lit­i­cal line and will not de­feat his op­po­nent, while "Jack is not ready for the job." Win or lose, Bis­ram pre­dict­ed, this was like­ly to be Lon­don's last con­test in elec­toral pol­i­tics. "He will want to go out on a high by tak­ing his team to an­oth­er vic­to­ry." For PNM's leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Bis­ram said, the stakes could not be any high­er.

"If PNM wins, it will ce­ment his (Row­ley) hold on the lead­er­ship of the PNM to lead the par­ty or form some op­po­si­tion al­liance in­to the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion." And if PNM los­es con­trol of To­ba­go, the pres­sure will be on Row­ley to make way for a dif­fer­ent leader who can win cross-over vot­ers to give the Op­po­si­tion a bet­ter chance in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Bis­ram said there was still a large per­cent­age of un­de­cid­ed vot­ers with sev­er­al seats too close to call and too close for com­fort. "Re­spon­dents are di­vid­ed by par­ty loy­al­ty. This is the main rea­son why the elec­tion is close­ly con­test­ed," Bis­ram said. Al­most every To­bag­on­ian when polled had sup­port­ed greater au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go and ad­di­tion­al rev­enues for the THA, Bis­ram said.

How­ev­er, when asked if they would sup­port the bill pro­posed by the PM that will give To­ba­go greater con­trol over its own af­fairs, on­ly 40 per cent (most­ly TOP sup­port­ers and some in­de­pen­dents) agreed, with no PN­Mites show­ing sup­port for the bill.

To­ba­go bill a po­lit­i­cal gim­mick

The bill was de­scribed as elec­tion gim­mick while TOP sup­port­ers felt it was a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment for the is­land. Bis­ram feels the out­come will de­pend on elec­tion-day ma­chin­ery. Ac­cord­ing to Bis­ram, whichev­er par­ty has a bet­ter ma­chin­ery and can bring out their vot­ers, will rule the day. Of the three as­pir­ing chief sec­re­taries, Bis­ram re­vealed that Lon­don com­mands greater re­spect among vot­ers and is seen as an ar­tic­u­late and ef­fec­tive speak­er.

"He is the choice of more re­spon­dents on who they would pre­fer as chief sec­re­tary." Op­po­nents de­scribe the bill as an elec­tion gim­mick and felt it was be­ing rushed through Par­lia­ment, while TOP sup­port­ers saw it as a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment for the is­land.

Du­mas: It's too much bac­cha­nal

For­mer head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas said he was dis­ap­point­ed with the elec­tion cam­paign, stat­ing it was based on pe­riph­er­al mat­ters and not "on mat­ters deal­ing with the so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of To­ba­go." Du­mas de­scribed the cam­paign as "too much bac­cha­nal." He was un­sure who con­duct­ed the re­cent polls that put the PNM in the lead.

If the poll was con­duct­ed by ei­ther the PNM, TPT or TOP, Du­mas said, this would cast out all in­tegri­ty of the re­sults. "You must have an im­par­tial body."


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored