How does a con­stituen­cy be­come safe for a pol

it­i­cal par­ty? I hold the view that racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion is the ma­jor fac­tor, with a sup­port­ing cast of 1) is­sue-based vot­ing from a large body of un­de­cid­ed elec­tors (right down to elec­tion day) and 2) flu­id­i­ty of vot­ers in eth­ni­cal­ly bal­anced (or mar­gin­al) con­stituen­cies.

In this se­ries of columns, I will be ex­plor­ing this ques­tion, bas­ing my­self most­ly on the num­bers of elec­tors that have vot­ed the PNM, the UNC (and its fore­bears), To­ba­go-fo­cused par­ties, and no­table in­de­pen­dents, be­gin­ning in 1956.

Adult suf­frage was in­tro­duced to the colony of Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1946 and the first gen­er­al elec­tions in­volv­ing par­ties took place in 1950. The first gen­er­al elec­tions took place in 1946 it­self but they were elec­tions of in­di­vid­u­als in a to­tal of nine con­stituen­cies–one in­di­vid­ual per con­stituen­cy–for ser­vice in the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil (as to­day’s low­er house of Par­lia­ment was then called).

From a field of six con­tes­tants, and in a poll of 8,105, A(lphon­so) P(hilbert) T(heophilus) James won the sin­gle To­ba­go seat with 4,318 or some 51 per cent of the vote.

In the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil gen­er­al elec­tions of 1950, six par­ties par­tic­i­pat­ed, con­test­ing for 18 seats. But nei­ther the PNM nor the Peo­ple’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (PDP) (the first in­car­na­tion of an In­do-based par­ty) par­tic­i­pat­ed.

The first par­tic­i­pa­tion of these two par­ties was in the 1956 elec­tions in which the par­tic­i­pants–both par­ties and in­de­pen­dents–con­test­ed 24 seats. The PNM was the on­ly par­ty (out of eight) to con­test all 24, win­ning 13 of them and thus form­ing the gov­ern­ment. The PDP con­test­ed 14 but won five.

Ac­cord­ing to the EBC re­port on the elec­tions, most of the re­sults were ‘clear-cut vic­to­ries’. The con­stituen­cies with ‘clear-cut’ ma­jori­ties for the PNM were 11 of the 13 they won: the four Port-of-Spain seats: North (1,458), South (2,515), South-East (4,480), and North-East (5,980); St George West (4,770); Laven­tille (7,748); San Juan (6,464), St George East (2,149), San Fer­nan­do East (1,348), San Fer­nan­do West (948), and Nar­i­va/Ma­yaro (626).

The con­stituen­cies with clear-cut ma­jori­ties for the PDP were the five they won: the three Ca­roni seats: North (4,323), Cen­tral (2,297), and South (3,484); Point-a-Pierre (4,165); and St Patrick East (2,525).

The oth­er con­stituen­cies with ‘clear-cut’ ma­jori­ties were Or­toire/ Moru­ga (1,546); the St Patrick seats: East (2,525) and West (1796); St An­drew/St David (1,176); and Na­pari­ma (702).

These are whop­ping ma­jori­ties for any par­ty to over­come.

In the sense of the seat win­ners hav­ing a ma­jor­i­ty of 10 per cent or few­er votes over the sec­ond-place con­tes­tant, there were, from the per­spec­tive of the 1961 gen­er­al elec­tions, four mar­gin­als: St Patrick Cen­tral (1), St Joseph (109 or 2.6 per cent), Tu­na­puna (179/2.7), and To­ba­go (245/0.04).

With re­spect to safe seats, the PNM were ahead of the PDP, the main op­po­si­tion par­ty, by four seats. How were they eth­ni­cal­ly com­posed? I do not know, and I am not aware of any de­mo­graph­ic stud­ies on the pe­ri­od that could guide me, but, from the lo­ca­tion of the con­stituen­cies and in recog­ni­tion of the pol­i­tics of eth­nic sep­a­ra­tion prac­tised by the British, it seems that the PDP at­tract­ed most­ly In­dos from Ca­roni and St Patrick while the PNM at­tract­ed most­ly Afros from Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons, from the east-west Cor­ri­dor from Laven­tille up to St George, and from San Fer­nan­do and deep­er South.

From the be­gin­ning of the coloni­sa­tion and gov­er­nance ex­per­i­ments, the two eth­nic­i­ties were liv­ing in dif­fer­ent places and it ap­pears they were sup­port­ing par­ties whose lead­er­ship eth­ni­cal­ly re­sem­bled them, by and large. In re­la­tion to those two po­lit­i­cal par­ties, To­ba­go was on its own, led by the en­ter­pris­ing APT James.

For the gen­er­al elec­tions of 1961, the num­ber of seats was ex­pand­ed to 30, the bound­aries of con­stituen­cies were ad­just­ed, and the names of some con­stituen­cies changed. The ex­pan­sion was due in no small mea­sure to rapid growth of the pop­u­la­tion in both To­ba­go and Trinidad, greater and greater mo­bil­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion, a not in­con­sid­er­able uptick in the ex­o­dus of To­bag­o­ni­ans to Trinidad, the spread of ex­ist­ing com­mu­ni­ties, and the de­vel­op­ment of new ones.

A new enu­mer­a­tion ex­er­cise had been un­der­tak­en af­ter 1961, lead­ing to a new vot­er reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise, and it re­sult­ed in both a con­sid­er­able re­work­ing of ex­ist­ing elec­toral bound­aries and the cre­ation of new con­stituen­cies. The elec­toral nomen­cla­ture of the colony now in­clud­ed, along the Cor­ri­dor: Diego Mar­tin, Barataria, St Au­gus­tine, Ari­ma, To­co/Man­zanil­la; in the north: Mar­aval; in Ca­roni: Ch­agua­nas and Cou­va; in the deep south: Princes Town, Fyz­abad, La Brea, Siparia, and Point Fortin; and in To­ba­go: To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West.

Four po­lit­i­cal par­ties con­test­ed the elec­tions: PNM, DLP (De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty) (which had suc­ceed­ed the PDP), BP (the But­ler Par­ty), and ANC (African Na­tion­al Con­gress). The first two put up can­di­dates in all 30 seats. Ac­cord­ing to the EBC re­port on the elec­tions:

‘The most sig­nif­i­cant po­lit­i­cal fact about the elec­tion is that it was al­most ex­clu­sive­ly a con­test be­tween the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty.’

The PNM won 20 seats while the DLP won the re­main­ing ten. Which is to say that, in 1961, the PNM won sev­en more seats while the DLP ex­tend­ed its com­ple­ment by five. As at 1961 then, the PNM had stretched its lead to ten.

And what about the ma­jori­ties for both par­ties in the con­stituen­cies that they had won? Let’s al­low the EBC to tell us:

‘[T]he ma­jori­ties in 29 of the con­stituen­cies were de­ci­sive, none of these be­ing less than one thou­sand votes. The high­est ma­jor­i­ty record­ed was in the con­stituen­cy of Laven­tille where there was a ma­jor­i­ty of 9,789.

The small­est of the 29 was in the con­stituen­cy of San Fer­nan­do West where the ma­jor­i­ty was 1,662. On­ly in one con­stituen­cy, that of Fyz­abad, was there a close re­sult, the ma­jor­i­ty of the first can­di­date over the sec­ond be­ing 126.’

Where did these ma­jori­ties come from? We haven’t ad­duced enough ev­i­dence yet but they seem to have come from racial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion but­tressed by un­de­cid­ed vot­ers and mi­nor eth­nic­i­ties.

(To be con­tin­ued)