Shal­iza Has­sanali

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."